Infecciones oportunistas en pacientes con VIH/SIDA atendidos en el Hospital de Infectología, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Opportunistic infections are one of the main causes of hospitalization and morbidity of HIV / AIDS patients. In Latin America, cerebral toxoplasmosis, candidiasis and pulmonary tuberculosis have been reported as the most recurrent in this group of patients at risk. Knowledge on the behavior of opportunistic infections in HIV / AIDS patients within each country is important, allowing the application of timely control and treatment strategies, for this reason a study was carried out to determine the frequency of opportunistic infections in HIV patients treated at the Hospital of Infectology during the year 2017. An observational, descriptive, retrospective study was developed from 143 patients’ records who were admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital. The information was analyzed by the SPSS program, frequencies and percentages for the categorical variables, and the average and standard deviation for the quantitative variables, were used for the descriptive statistics. The results showed that Histoplasmosis was the main opportunistic infection present in 55.7% of cases, followed by pulmonary tuberculosis (15.6%) as the second cause. Despite the great advances in the treatment of HIV / AIDS, a considerable number of patients are still affected by opportunistic infections in the country, for which a timely detection of the causative agent is necessary.