PATHOGEN DETECTION IN CHILDREN LIVING WITH HIV PRESENTING WITH NON-MALARIAL FEBRILE ILLNESS USING METAGENOMIC SEQUENCING AT BAYLOR-UGANDA

In Uganda, 130,000 children (0-14 years of age) were living with HIV in 2018. While fevers are commonly attributed to malaria, most fevers in African children are not due to malaria, and clinicians are challenged by the similar clinical features of a wide spectrum of potential aetiologies. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria have highlighted the decreasing proportion of malaria-attributable illnesses in endemic areas. Unfortunately, once malaria is excluded, there are few accessible diagnostic tools to guide the management of severe febrile illnesses in low-resource settings. This project aims to utilize shotgun metagenomics sequencing to characterize microbial pathogens in HIV-infected Ugandan children and adolescents admitted to Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation - Uganda with NMFIs and associated clinical presentations or comorbidities.