Adult and paediatric AIDS patients lacking HIV antibodies detected by enzyme immunoassay in central Africa

Abstract

We describe HIV antigen and HIV-1, HIV-2 and human T-cell leukaemia virus type I (HTLV-I) Western blot (WB) results in 20 adults and 12 children with AIDS who were shown to be HIV-1 seronegative by two commercial enzyme immunoassays (EIA), in Kigali, Rwanda, central Africa. These patients represented 3% of adults and 7.4% of children with AIDS observed in Kigali during the study period. Thirteen of the adults and five of the children were HIV-1 WB positive. All patients were HTLV-I WB negative. One adult AIDS patient had a reactive HIV-2 WB; he is the first HIV-2-infected individual to be diagnosed in Rwanda, HIV antigenaemia was demonstrated in only one adult and one child, suggesting that HIV antigenaemia is not frequent in African AIDS patients, even in the case of weak immunologic responses to HIV core proteins. Three adults and four children had none of the serological markers detected. This study showed that HIV EIA negativity occurs infrequently in African patients with AIDS. In such a situation, an attempt to detect HIV antibodies by a more sensitive technique, such as WB, is necessary. © Lippincott-Raven Publishers.