Prevalence and associated factors of treatment failure among HIV/AIDS patients on HAART attending University of Gondar Referral Hospital Northwest Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: The initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) plays a significant role in the clinical management of HIV infected people by preventing morbidity and mortality. This benefit becomes, the most terrible when treatment failure develops. Thus, this research aims to assess the prevalence and associated factors of treatment failure among HIV/AIDS patients on HAART attending University of Gondar Referral Hospital Northwest Ethiopia.

RESULTS: Patients on ART with a minimum of 6 months and up to 12 years of treatment were being enrolled. The prevalence of treatment failure, immunological failure and virological failure among people living with HIV/AIDS attending University of Gondar referral hospital were 20.3, 13.2, and 14.7%, respectively. Patients who had no formal education (Adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 3.8; 95% CI, 1.05-13.77), primary level education (AOR: 4.2; 95% CI, 1.16-15.01) and duration on ART < 6 years (AOR: 2.1; 95%CI, 1.12-3.81) were a significant risk factor. However, initial adult regimen D4T +  3TC+ EFV (AOR: 0.025; 95% CI, 0.002-0.36), AZT +3TC + NVP (AOR: 0.07; 95% CI, 0.01-0.71), AZT +  3TC + EFV (AOR: 0.046; 95% CI, 0.004-0.57) andTDF+3TC + EFV (AOR: 0.04; 95% CI, 0.004-0.46) were significantly protective for treatment failure.

CONCLUSIONS: Timely and early identification of associated factors and monitoring antiretroviral therapy treatment failure should be done to enhance the benefit and to prevent further complication of the patients. It is preferable to initiate ART using any one of the following ART regimens: AZT +3TC + NVP, AZT + 3TC + EFV and TDF + 3TC + EFV to prevent treatment failure. Since the prevalence of this treatment failure and its associated factor may be different from other ART centers and community in Ethiopia, further national representative institutional based cross-sectional researches are needed across all ART centers of Ethiopia in order to determine the prevalence of treatment failure and its associated factors.