Malaria and HIV are two of the most important infectious diseases impacting global health in the 21st century. Both of these diseases have received considerable funding for control programs and increased public health education efforts, especially in Africa. Many countries in the Americas, however, have rapidly escalating cases of malaria and HIV, with much less attention or funding by global disease control and prevention efforts. This presentation discusses the need for integrated surveillance with concomitant disease management strategies and public health education with regard to malaria/HIV coinfections in the Americas. Guyana serves as a case study. This South American country has upward of 30,000 reported cases of malaria per year in a population of less than one million inhabitants. We recently conducted an HIV prevalence study on a group of 216 gold miners in the Amazonian region of the country, the area where most of the malaria cases originate. We found that 6.5% (14/216) of the men in this camp were HIV positive. This was a surprising result due to the isolation of the communities living in the Amazonian region. Since the deterioration of the immune system in those with HIV infection weakens immunity to other diseases, this may be linked to increasing malaria severity and incidence in countries where malaria is endemic. In conclusion, greater emphasis should be placed on malaria control strategies in the Americas that utilize integrated surveillance programs to further investigate the relationship between HIV and malaria coinfections.
Learning Objectives: 1) To describe the presence of HIV in populations exposed to malaria in the Americas. 2) To recognize the potential health threat from HIV/malaria coinfections. 3) To describe the need of increased surveillance efforts with regard to HIV/malaria coinfections.
Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.