A particularly severe form of Mpox (a disease formerly known as monkey pox) has been detected in HIV-infected patients and is often fatal for those in the AIDS stage, according to a study recently published in the medical journal The Lancet, informs AFP.
The Mpox epidemic, which spread worldwide in 2022 before largely subsiding, mainly affected men who maintain homosexual relationships.
However, this is a population in which there is a higher percentage of people infected with HIV, the virus that, in its most advanced stage, triggers AIDS, affecting the patient’s immunity and making him vulnerable to a series of diseases.
In this context, the researchers analyzed the particular risks that Mpox poses to patients already infected with HIV.
The authors of the study thus studied the case of about 400 patients infected with both HIV and Mpox.
In their case, the scientists identified a very serious form of the disease, which they called “fulminant Mpox”.
This form, which is concentrated in patients in whom the HIV infection is in an advanced stage, leads to massive necrosis of the skin, genital organs and even the lungs.
It caused the death of 27 patients. All of them had exceeded the threshold generally used to talk about the onset of AIDS: less than 200 CD4 T lymphocytes per mm3 of blood.
These deaths alone represent a large part of the approximately one hundred deaths recorded during the epidemic, out of several tens of thousands of infections.
For the researchers, these findings should prompt health authorities to prioritize vaccinating people with HIV against Mpox.
They also request that this severe form of Mpox be added to the list of diseases characteristic of AIDS. This list includes about 15 diseases considered particularly dangerous in case of an advanced HIV infection. (source Agerpres)
