The impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on visceral leishmaniasis in Spanish patients who are co-infected with HIV

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Abstract
Clinicians in Madrid have been observing and treating HIV-positive patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL) for over a decade. As their records cover some of the co-infection cases that occurred before and after highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced into Spain, retrospective analysis of the records has allowed some of the effects of HAART on local VL to be determined. Encouragingly, HAART appears to have decreased the annual incidence of VL among local AIDS cases, from 4.81 cases/100 to just 0.8 case/100 (P 200 cells/microl can be maintained using HAART. VL also seems to hamper the immunological recovery of the HIV-positive, although HAART appears to have little effect on the clinical manifestations of VL.