Objective:

To describe the causes of morbidity, mortality and antiretroviral failure and to relate them to the mechanism of acquisition of the virus in adolescents with HIV / AIDS treated at the Hospital Universitario de Caracas, in the period 2009 - 2013.

Methods:

Descriptive, retrospective analysis of the follow up of a cohort. Data from patient with HIV / AIDS aged between 10 and 19 years of the Hospital Universitario de Caracas during the period 2009 - 2013.

Results:

79 records were analyzed, according to the transmission mechanism 29 (36.7%) acquired the virus by vertical transmission and 50 (63.2%) by horizontal transmission.

The main opportunistic disease was tuberculosis, and no significant differences were found to have it according to the transmission mechanism (p: 0.54). When considering demographic factors and initial diagnosis it was observed that when diagnosis was made at older age there were less probability of antiretroviral failure (OR: 0.75). Also, 50% of patients presented virologic failure after 90 months of treatment independently of the transmission mechanism, gender or type of initial treatment.

Discussion:

The increase in the number of HIV cases in the adolescent population in Venezuela is a major issue in public health. It is important to study which strategies can improve poor adherence to antiretroviral drugs in this population and to determine whether this strategy can decrease the number of failures.

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