Codere G, Allardice GM, McMenamin J, Goldberg DJ, Smyth W, Raeside F, Shaw LE; International Conference on AIDS.

Int Conf AIDS. 1998; 12: 927-8 (abstract no. 43419).

SCIEH, Glascow, Scotland.

OBJECTIVE: To integrate information from a variety of HIV surveillance systems in Scotland thereby generating a single register capable of monitoring an individual's progress from negative HIV-antibody testing through HIV diagnosis, CD4 count monitoring, AIDS registration, and death. METHODS: In 1994, The Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health (SCIEH) coordinated and administered four National attributable HIV surveillance systems, data from which were held on four independent databases--Laboratory Surveillance of All Persons Having a Named HIV Antibody Test (The Denominator Study), Laboratory Surveillance of All Persons Having an HIV Positive Test Result, the AIDS Registration System, and Surveillance of Persons Undergoing CD4 Monitoring. The first step in integrating these systems involved the merging of the HIV Positive and AIDS Registration databases. Information on an individual's last recorded negative HIV test result was then lifted from the Denominator Study and added to the record. Death information on HIV infected individuals, provided by the Registrar General for Scotland, is added to the database on a monthly basis. Finally, in late 1996 the database was directly linked to the CD4 Surveillance database, which had been operating since 1992. For the purposes of confidentiality, soundex coding of name is extensively used by SCIEH on all attributable HIV surveillance systems. RESULTS: As at 31 December 1997, 2725 HIV-positive reports and 899 AIDS registrations had been received by SCIEH. Of the 2725 cases, 1011 are known to have died. 1254 of the remaining 1714 are presently undergoing CD4 monitoring, 131 of these with a most recent CD4 count of < 50, 291 between 51-200, 585 between 201-500, and 247 with a count of > 500. AIDS registrations have been received for 186 cases currently undergoing CD4 monitoring. Evidence of previous negative testing has been traced in a total of 207 cases. CONCLUSIONS: The integrated dataset (HIV Neg, HIV Pos, CD4 Count, AIDS, Death) provides Scotland with an extremely powerful, and perhaps unique, tool capable of monitoring national and local trends in infection as well as an individual's movement through different stages of HIV disease progression. The database has already proved to be successful in providing detailed information for revenue allocation and predictions of cases with severe HIV-related disease. SCIEH hopes to add data on viral load testing at a future data.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• AIDS Vaccines
• Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
• Antigens, CD4
• CD4 Lymphocyte Count
• Confidentiality
• Federal Government
• HIV Antibodies
• HIV Infections
• HIV Seropositivity
• Health Personnel
• Humans
• Records as Topic
• Registries
• Scotland
• Viral Load
• immunology

Other ID:

• 98405047

UI: 102231582

From Meeting Abstracts