ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To understand the correlation between CD4+ cell count, HIV viral load (VL) and clinical characteristics among patients when HIV-1 was tested positive and initial AIDS diagnosis was made.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>690 HIV-infected cases from Beijing Di-Tan Hospital were included and under a cross sectional study while SPSS statistical method was used.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The 690 HIV-infected cases would include 458 males and 232 females with age range from 2-72 years (mean age as 35.3). The modes of transmission showed that: homosexual contact taking up 17.5% while heterosexual was 16.7%. Most of the homosexual-infected ones lived in Beijing and most of them had bachelor or master's degrees. 19.4% of the transmission happened between heterosexual/bisexual couples, suggesting that HIV was transmitted through the "bridge population" while the rest were infected by contaminated blood/plasma. Many of the cases were identified when they lately visited the pre-operation surveillance point in the hospital. Serious immunodeficiency symptoms or signs were discovered as: CD4+ count < 50 cell/microl, serious opportunistic infections including pneumocystosis pulmonary, cerebral toxoplasmosis and cryptococcal meningitis. Higher frequencies of diseases seen were dermotosis, pneumonia, upper respiratory tract infection, hepatitis and digestive tract moniliasis.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Because of the late identification of the disease, serious immuo-suppression situation often appeared, suggesting that there was an urgent need to improve STD/AIDS knowledge on those HIV (+) people so they might have an early access to accept medical care.</p>