[HIV infection in the Public Assistance Hospitals in Paris. Cross-sectional survey on a given day per trimester, a hospital indicator of morbidity].

Many patients with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and the other forms of human immunodeficiency virus infection are treated in the Assistance Publique hospitals of Paris (AP). A cross-sectional survey to be repeated on a given day of each trimester was designed to obtain rapidly and anonymously the number of inpatients treated. A questionnaire was sent to the head of every department treating acute inpatients, asking for the number of patients with AIDS, AIDS-related Complex, pre-AIDS... and asymptomatic carriers of HIV. In 1986, a regular increase was observed from 252 (139 AIDS patients) in March to 318 (170 AIDS patients) in December. On the average, approximately two-thirds of the AIDS patients were hospitalized in three hospitals; however, their number remained stable over the year so these three hospitals' proportion tended to decrease. An estimation of the annual number of inpatients with HIV infection was drawn from the mean of the cross-sectional survey's results. This survey makes it possible to evaluate on an almost continuous basis the impact of AIDS and related conditions on hospitalization figures.