Question
My 4 year old daughter's CD4 has dropped, what does this mean?
11 May 2012. Related: All topics, Children, Starting treatment.
My 4 years old girl, is HIV positive, and her CD4 has dropped from 857 to 664 and her viral load has picked up from 10,000 to 182,773. I just wanted to find out if she at risk?
Answer
HIV care for children is a very specialised area and I’m very sorry but i-Base are not specialists in this area. How your daughter is cared for will depend on which country you are in, which isn’t mentioned in your message.
Children are usually monitored using CD4% instead of CD4 counts. This is because children have much higher CD4 counts than adults and CD4% is a much more stable measure for children. World Health Organisation guidelines recommend starting treatment for a infant of your daughter’s age when the CD4 is 750 or less, and the CD4% is 25% or below.
Your daughter’s viral load is also high enough to suggest she should start treatment, even if not taking her CD4 count into consideration.
For more information about HIV treatment in infants please take a look at the following websites:
WHO Guidelines: Antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection in infants and children
US guidelines from doctors and researchers in the US
European guidelines from PENTA (European Trial Network) – note – dated 2004
Hi Lebo,
This is a very strong CD4 count which means your immune system is strong. An ‘normal’ CD4 for an HIV negative person is around 500. So you are doing very well.
How long have you been on treatment? One aim of treatment is to get your viral load to ‘undetectable’ – under 50. This is important to help make sure the drugs keep working and HIV can’t fight back against them. If your viral load doesn’t go below 50 there is a risk that your drugs could stop working in the future. It would be useful to know when you started treatment, and when you last had a viral load test.
You can read more about viral loads and treatment in our Introduction to combination therapy guide.
My cd4 count is 857 since I’ve being on Art and my viral load is 147RNA cps/ml,
So is the any possibilities that my life it on danger? Just curious about my life.