Characteristics of HIV/AIDS patients attending a rural hospital in Cameroon. Manyemen HIV/AIDS Team.

Manyemen, a rural community in Cameroon, has now been hit by the HIV epidemic. This paper describes the experiences gained at the Presbyterian General Hospital in Manyemen between 1990 and 1992 regarding HIV infection in pregnant women, AIDS case management, counseling and home visits. A total of 383 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics were tested. We found a 2.9% HIV-1 seroprevalence and a 17% reactivity to a non-specific syphilis test, rapid plasma reagin, RPR. In 1990, 1991 and 1992, we diagnosed 55, 89 and 94 cases of clinical AIDS respectively. New TB cases seen in the same period showed the following HIV positive rates 3.5%, 2.4% and 5.8%. A detailed study of 78 AIDS patients revealed that the five most common presenting signs in our patients were wasting (80%), prolonged fever (28%), chronic diarrhoea (17%), oropharyngeal candidiasis (14%) and pulmonary TB (10%). Pretest and post test counseling is routinely done by the AIDS team. About 79% of the patients were post counselled as were 27% of their relatives. Home visits have been started. These results show that AIDS is no longer an issue confined to cities in Cameroon and that rural hospitals should institute a programme, similar to ours, to help them cope with the AIDS epidemic.