الفهرس 
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Abstract
HIV is one of the world’s most serious public health challenges which progressively destroys the body’s immune system. AIDS is the advanced stage of HIV infection which makes the body susceptible to all types of opportunistic infections and the result is inevitable death.
According to UNAIDS There were approximately 38.4 million people across the globe with HIV in 2021. Of these, 36.7 million were adults and 1.7 million were children (<15 years old). In addition, 54% were women and girls. An estimated 1.5 million individuals worldwide acquired HIV in 2021, marking a 32% decline in new HIV infections since 2010. Of these, 1.3 million were among adults, 160, 000 were among children (<15 years old) (UNIAIDS ,2022)
While the progress in HIV response has been promising, children continue to be affected by the epidemic. About 2.8 million children and adolescents are living with HIV, nearly 88 % of them in sub-Saharan Africa (Pillay& Johnson,2021). In 2020, at least 300, 000 children were newly infected with HIV, or one child every two minutes. That same year, 120, 000 children and adolescents died from AIDS-related causes, or one child every five minutes. (UNICEF, 2021).
CGRP is a neuropeptide which is secreted from the nociceptors which are sensory peripheral neurons that innervate all mucosal epithelia and respond to various types of noxious stimuli. CGRP was found to have a significant role in inhibiting HIV transmission.
This study aimed to measure the serum level of CGRP in different groups of HIV infected patients as a possible indicator of disease activity and investigate the correlation between its level, viral load (VL) and CD4+ cell count
A total of 104 HIV infected patients attended Abbassia fever hospital and referred to central public health laboratories were enrolled in this study during the period from December 2020 to April 2021 and divided into four groups: acute primary HIV infection (PHI) didn’t receive antiretroviral therapy (cART naïve), chronic HIV infection (CHI) (cART naïve), CHI after 1 year of cART and CHI after 2 years of cART. The number of males and females were 72(69.23%) and 32 (30.77%) respectively,). Their mean age was 40.89 ± 10.70. While there were 24 healthy control subjects in the control group; they were 16 males (66.7%) and 8 females (33.3%) with a mean age was 42.63 ± 11.42.
EDTA anti-coagulated blood samples were collected for all study participants. CD4+T lymphocytes was measured by flowcytometry, viral load also measured by RT-PCR. serum samples were also tested for CGRP levels using ELISA technique in patients and control subjects.
In the present study, we found that CGRP serum levels were significantly lower in cART naïve PHI and CHI patients in comparison to control subjects. Also, levels were raised after six months of cART in PHI and in CHI cART treated groups. CGRP serum levels and CD4+ T cells were positively correlated however CGRP serum levels were negatively correlated VL.
Thus, these results show that CGRP serum levels gradually decline as HIV infection proceeds. Therefore, CGRP might represent a possible indicator of disease activity by measuring its initial level in the serum at the first visit to the clinic and follow up the level thereafter.