A Follow-Up Study on Survival Trend of AIDS Patients Reported at ART Center in Delhi & Variation According to Age, Sex, Stages & Mode of Transmissions.

ABSTRACT

Incubation period of HIV to AIDS is a vital tool that plays an important role in estimating the longevity or survivability of the HIV infected patients. However, death of AIDS patients when considered as end point becomes meaningful while finding the actual survivability of an individual. The present study is focused in analyzing the data on 343 AIDS patients who were recommended to undergo treatment in the ART centre followed up for a period of 6 years. The study included a cohesive treatment of censored observations based on lost to follow-up, deaths, recovered and alive cases till the end of study as well as uncensored observations. On the basis of diagnosed AIDS cases, the estimates of survivability under various conditions have been obtained. This paper also incorporates the trend of survivability for the reported AIDS patients with respect to age, sex, stages and mode of transmission across these 6 years. Kaplan Meier estimation method and Cox proportional hazard model were applied to determine the effect of various covariates that may be responsible for the death of the AIDS patients, survival pattern.