Is the HIV Seroprevalence among Iraqi Patients with β-thalassemia Major Underestimated or not Prevalent?

摘要

In the July 2020 issue of the Oman Medical Journal , Sadullah et al,~(1) reported that no HIV infection cases were detected among patients with -thalassemia major (-TM) attending a center in Northern Iraq. Though such a finding supports a similar observation previously reported at the national level,~(2) I still assume that the actual HIV seroprevalence among -TM patients is underestimated. My assumption is based on the following two points.First, although Iraq is considered a country with a low HIV/AIDS epidemic (0.1%), HIV risk factors have continued to increase since 2003 due to low literacy, poverty, gender-associated discrimination, and limited knowledge of the modes of HIV transmission. Approximately 57% of HIV cases were acquired by blood transfusion and blood products, although sexual transmission has increasingly become the major reported route of HIV transmission. The current state of constrained financial resources at governmental level, crisis of internally displaced people, sociocultural barriers, and weak national preventive efforts are expected to increase the spread of HIV/AIDS in Iraq.~(3) Consequently, the increase in HIV infection among -TM patients is expected to parallel a similar rise in the general population.