Skip to main content
  • Poster presentation
  • Open access
  • Published:

Behavioral factors associated with HCV and HIV co-infection in residents of São Paulo, Brazil

Introduction

To date, there are no surveys in Brazil on the occurrence of co-infection hepatitis and HIV in the general population. The aim of the present study was to investigate factors associated with HIV/HCV co-infection among residents in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, notified at the National Databank of Major Causes of Morbidity.

Material and methods

We reviewed 3,032 cases of HIV/HCV co-infection among 46,969 bank records of viral hepatitis from January 2007 to March 2010. The hepatitis C cases were confirmed by the presence of HCV RNA using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in anti-HCV-positive samples. The diagnosis of HIV/AIDS and data on demographic and behavioral aspects were collected through epidemiologic investigation forms. Variables associated with HCV/HIV co-infection were identified with Poisson regression model and confidence intervals of 95%.

Results

The majority were male (73%), white (65%) and had less than 50 years (65%). In a adjusted analysis, the prevalence ratio was 1.27 (CI 95%:1.04-1.55) for sexual contact with patients with HVB or HCV, 1.48(CI 95%: 1.27-1,73) for 3 or more sexual partners, 1.73 (CI 95%: 1.38-2.16) for STD, 2.95 (95% CI:2.42-3.59) among IDU and 1.78(95% CI:1.49-2.17) among inhalable drug users or crack.

Conclusions

These data show that illicit drug use is the main factor associated with co-infection HCV / HIV in São Paulo. Sexual transmission suggested to play a role in co-infected HCV / HIV.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Norma Farias.

Rights and permissions

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Farias, N., de Oliveira, U.B., de Souza, I. et al. Behavioral factors associated with HCV and HIV co-infection in residents of São Paulo, Brazil. Retrovirology 9 (Suppl 1), P130 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-9-S1-P130

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-9-S1-P130

Keywords