Prevalence of HIV in Leprosy Patients in Central Myanmar during 2008

HIV infection has been shown to be strongly associated with the development of active tuberculosis. However, its association with leprosy was much less clear. Moreover, seroprevalence of HIV infection among leprosy patients has never been reported in Myanmar. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of HIV among leprosy patients and the association between HIV infection and types of leprosy in central Myanmar during 2008. A total of 299 leprosy patients, including 242 multibacillary (MB) and 57 paucibacillary (PB) leprosy patients, were enrolled. The overall HIV seroprevalence was 3.7%, with 4.1% in MB leprosy patients and 1.8% in PB leprosy patients. Fifty MB leprosy patients (20.7%) had history of multi-drug therapy (MDT) and 4 of them (8.0%) were HIV infected. Six out of 192 MB leprosy patients without history of MDT were HIV infected (3.1%). MB leprosy cases with history of previous treatment had greater prevalence of HIV infection. Further study should be considered whether HIV infection may cause difficulty to cure leprosy and additional MDT course may require in HIV infected leprosy patients with previous history of MDT.