The impact of HIV infection on the clinical presentation of severe malnutrition in children at QECH.

A study was undertaken in a central nutritional rehabilitation unit (NRU) in southern Malawi to assess the impact of HIV infection on clinical presentation and case fatality rate. The HIV seroprevalence for 250 severely malnourished children over 1 year of age was 34.4% and the overall mortality was 28%. HIV infection was significantly more associated with marasmus (62.2%) than with kwashiorkor (21.7%) [p<0.0001]. Clinical and radiological features were not helpful in distinguishing HIV infected from non HIV infected children. The in-hospital case fatality rate was significantly higher for HIV infected children (38.4%) compared to severely malnourished children without HIV infection (22.7%) [p<0.05]. Though HIV infection contributes to the high mortality experienced in NRU's in Malawi, we argue that more remediable contributing factors still need to be addressed.