[Clinical and developmental aspects of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in the Congo (the experience of the medical service of the Hôpital Central des Armées Pierre Mobengo - Brazzaville)].

During a period of 20 months, 204 cases of AIDS were diagnosed among adults in the Medicine Department of the Pierre Mobengo Armed Forces Central Hospital, Brazzaville. The authors review the clinical and evolutive aspects in admitted patients during these period of time, taking into consideration the problems of diagnosis, treatment and monitoring, according to the conditions of practice. Individuality of AIDS in Central Africa is underlined by its different features. AIDS strikes heterosexual people with multiple partners, with a sex-ratio near to 1. In a patient more often cachectic and febrile, some digestive manifestations occurred, mainly diarrheal, early, neurological, of bad prognosis. Pulmonary manifestations (above all tuberculosis superinfection) and cutaneous manifestations often characteristic, are less frequent and mainly different from the ones observed in Europe and North America. Fast evolution is underlined. These characteristics of AIDS in Central Africa, of course subordinate to the medical context, seem mainly linked to a peculiarity of the disease, in close relationship with the density of the infection, diathesis and opportunistic environment, all very different.