Abstract:

Introduction: HIV continues to be a major global health issue. In 2016 an estimation of 36.7 million PLWHIV including 1.8 million children. Global HIV prevalence of 10.8% among adults. 78 million people have become HIV positive and 35% have died due to AIDS related illness. In Tanzania 2016 PLWHIV are 1.4 million equivalent to 4.7% of adult’s prevalence.

Broad objective: Determination of factors and prevalence of HIV/AIDS patients to switch to second line.

Setting: The study was conducted at the care and treatment center at mount meru regional hospital which is a referral hospital.

Study design: A retrospective cohort study was conducted by checking their CTC files.

Methods: The study was conducted at the care and treatment center at mount meru regional referral hospital. A retrospective cohort study was conducted by checking information in their CTC files.

Results: The study enrolled 135 patients CTC cards 2 to whom initially their ART regimen changed were reviewed from May to June 2018 out of 151 patients available on second line present at mount meru regional referral hospital. The mean patient age was 41.1. Majority been female 79(58.5%). Most of patients where on WHO stage 3 and 4 at the time switch. From a total of 135 patients on second line regimen, 83 of patients were shifted from their initial regimen due to CD4 cell count criteria to which not all where on below the WHO criteria for shifting, within the 83 patients had more than one reason for shifting such as adherence, Ols and toxicity to which all the criteria’s for regimen change or shift.

Conclusion: In limited resources setting where viral load testing is not routinely available, the first priority would be confirm failure in patients in whom treatment failure is suspected based on clinical and immunological criteria.