What Triggers a Diagnosis of HIV Infection in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area? Implications for Preventing the Spread of HIV Infection in Japan

Background

Japan has not succeeded in reducing the annual number of new HIV-infected patients, although the prevalence of HIV infection is low (0.02%).

Methods

A single-center observational study was conducted at the largest HIV clinic in Tokyo, which treats 15% of the total patients in Japan, to determine the reasons for having diagnostic tests in newly infected individuals. HIV-infected patients who visited our clinic for the first time between 2011 and 2014 were analyzed.

Results

The 598 study patients comprised one-third of the total reported number of new patients in Tokyo during the study period. 76% were Japanese MSM. The reasons for being tested which led to the diagnosis was voluntary testing in 32%, existing diseases in 53% (AIDS-defining diseases in 22%, sexually transmitted infections (STI) in 8%, diseases other than AIDS or STIs in 23%) and routine pre-surgery or on admission screening in 15%. 52% and 74% of the study patients and patients presented with AIDS, respectively, had never been tested. The median CD4 count in patients with history of previous testing (315/μL) was significantly higher than that of patients who had never been tested (203/μL, p<0.001).

Conclusions

Only 32% of the newly HIV diagnosed patients were diagnosed because of voluntary testing, and 53% were diagnosed due to presence of other diseases. These results remain unchanged from our previous report 10 years earlier (2000–2004) on newly diagnosed patients at the same clinic. HIV testing has not been widely used by newly diagnosed patients in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Below:  Comparison of reasons for HIV diagnostic testing in newly diagnosed patients between 2000–2005 and 2011–2014 time periods

Full article at:  http://goo.gl/pdYVPf

By:

Takeshi Nishijima, Misao Takano, Shoko Matsumoto, Miki Koyama, Yuko Sugino, Miwa Ogane, Kazuko Ikeda, Yoshimi Kikuchi, Shinichi Oka, Hiroyuki Gatanaga

AIDS Clinical Center, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Shoko Matsumoto

Graduate School of Public Health, Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan

Shinichi Oka, Hiroyuki Gatanaga

Center for AIDS Research, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan

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