THE PREVALENCE OF HELICOBACTER-PYLORI POSITIVITY IN HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS-INFECTED CHILDREN

To investigate the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in pedi atric patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, we soug ht to detect the presence of antibodies against this organism in 23 hu man immunodeficiency virus-infected children of central African ethnic origin by means of a second-generation enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELI SA) test for the detection of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies to Hel icobacter pylori (Malakit Helicobacter pylori, Biolab, Limal, Belgium) . They were compared to an asymptomatic control population matched for age and ethnic origin. Blood samples were taken during routine blood analysis before the monthly administration of intravenous gamma-globul ins in the human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients and during p reoperative blood analysis in the control population. Despite the fact that most human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients had IgG anti bodies against other frequently encountered pathogens, none of them ha d a positive serology for Helicobacter pylori, compared to 10 of 52 pa tients (19.2%) in the control population. This difference is statistic ally significant (p = 0.01).