Impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy on the incidence of visceral leishmaniasis in a french cohort of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus

The incidence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-Leishmania coinfections in France was estimated on the basis of the French Hospital Database on HIV, and risk factors for the occurrence of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) were analyzed by a multivariate Cox model. VL was diagnosed in 165 of 55,626 HIV-infected patients followed since 1992. The incidence of VL decreased from 11.6 +/- 1.2 per 10,000 persons-years before 1996 to 6.3 +/- 0.7 per 10,000 persons-years after 1996, the year when highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was initiated in France. The relative hazard (RH) for development of VL was higher in (1) intravenous drug users versus other transmission groups (RH = 1.56; 95% CI, 1.13-2.15), (2) patients living in southern France versus those living in northern France (RH = 3.36; 95% CI, 2.44 -4.61), and (3) patients who had a CD4 cell count of less than or equal to50/mm(3) during their follow-up versus those who did not (RH = 6.45; 95% CI, 4.27-9.75) but was lower in (4) patients who received antiretroviral therapy including greater than or equal to3 drugs versus those who did not (RH = 0.41; 95% CI, 0.26-0.65). We found a significant decrease in the incidence of HIV-Leishmania coinfections after 1996, associated with the introduction of HAART in France.