Assessing Eosinophil Count as a Marker of Immune Activation

In 611 human immunodeficiency virus–infected persons who had not yet begun to receive antiretroviral therapy, we eval-uated the linear association between absolute eosinophil count (as a surrogate for immune response to helminthic infection) and CD4+ T cell count, and between absolute eo-sinophil count and log virus load. Overall, no significant correlations were observed between eosinophil count and CD4+ T cell count, or between eosinophil count and log virus load. A better understanding is needed as to why the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has been predominantly het-erosexual, unlike the epidemic in Europe and North America. High virus loads may account, at least in part, for the higher rates of heterosexual transmission: in studies of discordant cou-ples, the virus load was found to be the chief predictor of th