Severe form of mpox found in advanced HIV cases: Study

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
22 Feb 14:57

A new study published in the Lancet journal reports that 38-50% of global mpox patients also had HIV.

Technicians wearing personal protective equipment suits seen inside a molecular laboratory facility set up to test for the mpox during its inauguration at the King Institute in Chennai in 2022 (AFP)

Researchers said on Tuesday that they had discovered a particularly severe type of mpox in people with advanced HIV, which had a 15% mortality rate among AIDS patients.

Mpox has long been endemic in some African countries but began spreading globally last May.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 85,800 mpox cases, including 93 deaths, have already been documented in 110 countries.

A new study published in the Lancet journal reported that 38-50% of global mpox patients also had HIV.

It is worth noting that a multinational team of specialists examined 382 persons from 19 countries who had both HIV and mpox for the study. This figure included 27 persons who died as a result of the disease, accounting for more than a quarter of the total toll during the global outbreak.

The medics discovered a particularly severe variant of the disease, dubbed "fulminant mpox", which afflicted persons with advanced HIV or AIDS. Symptoms included massive, necrotizing lesions on the skin, genitals, and occasionally lungs.

The patients with the lowest amount of a type of white blood cell called CD4 cells had the worst lesions and associated symptoms.

In further detail, HIV destroys CD4 cells, which are used as an indicator of the health of a patient's immune system.

A healthy person who does not have HIV should have a CD4 count of more than 500 cells per cubic centimeter of blood.

People are diagnosed with AIDS when their CD4 count falls below 200, as per US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The severe form of mpox killed 15% of individuals with a CD4 count below 200, which comprised all 27 fatalities, despite the small sample size, as per the study.

The study's first author, Oriol Mitja of Spain's Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital, said in a statement, as quoted by AFP, that health authorities should prioritize mpox vaccines for "people living with HIV, most notably in countries with low levels of diagnosis or without universal free access to antiretroviral treatment."

The researchers also advocated for the inclusion of this severe type of mpox on the list of "AIDS-defining diseases" kept by international public health bodies, which assists doctors in determining which infections may be the most harmful for persons living with HIV.