Early case of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in a child from Zaire.

An eight-year-old child from Zaire died in Sweden in 1982 after a clinical course compatible with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In 1975, at the age of 5 months, the infant had an acute viral infection with a rash; this illness was followed by a chronic cough. During the course of the disease he had recurrent septicemia, fever (frequently with miliary lung infiltrates), disseminated lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, candidiasis, and diarrhea. Late in the illness the child developed lethal disseminated disturbances of the central nervous system. Immunologic investigations revealed a pronounced hypergammaglobulinemia, normal C3 but low C4 values, decreased number of T-lymphocytes, and decreased lymphocyte stimulation with T-cell and B-cell mitogens. Samples of serum taken in 1981 and 1982 were analyzed and found to be positive for antibodies to HTLV-III virus. The course of the disease in this child was more prolonged than most of the pediatric cases described earlier. It is likely that this child developed AIDS early in 1975, long before the AIDS epidemic was apparent in the United States.