no evidence of human herpesvirus 8 among iranian patients infected with hiv

Background: kaposi’s sarcoma is a vascular malignancy, which frequently occurs among immunocompromised individuals such as transplant recipients and patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. human herpesvirus 8 (hhv-8) is considered the etiological agent of all forms of kaposi’s sarcoma. though some seroepidemiological studies conducted on the prevalence of hhv-8 in iran, there are insufficient data on the prevalence of hhv-8 viremia in hiv infected patients. we therefore, aimed to determine the prevalence of hhv-8 viremia in general population and hiv infected patients without kaposi’s sarcoma in tehran, iran. methods: we conducted a cross sectional survey on 99 patients with hiv infection referred to iranian research cen-ter for hiv/aids and 40 healthy controls in tehran, iran from january to april 2014. the presence of hhv-8 dna was detected in buffy coat samples of enrolled subjects using nested pcr assay. results: a total of 99 hiv infected patients with mean age of 37.9±10 yr and 40 healthy controls with mean age of 39±11.5 yr were enrolled in the study. the mean cd4 count was 410.3± 211.4 cells/mm3. hhv-8 dna was not detected in both healthy control and hiv patient groups. conclusion: this survey showed low rate of hhv-8 dna in healthy controls and hiv patients. considering our findings hhv-8 infection does not seem to be widespread in our population. further studies focusing on different regions of iran appear to be required to have a more accurate estimation.