Introduction People living with HIV in 2008 worldwide are 33.4 million with 2.7 million new cases and 2 million deaths. Southeast Asia has 4.7 million HIV patients. Five countries account for majority of the HIV infections-India (2.31 million), Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia and Nepal. Hence we sought to study the sociodemographic profile of HIV patients registered at ART center in Mysore. Cluster Designation 4 (CD4) count at the initiation of ART and 6 months thereafter were compared.

Methods The study sample was taken from the records of the ART center at Krishnarajendra hospital, Mysore that consisted of 1702 patients on ART from June 2007 to March 2010. Socioeconomic & demographic details, sexual practices, HIV status (WHO staging) & CD4 counts at the initiation and after 6 months of treatment were collected.

Results Majority of the patients on ART (77%) were males between 21 and 40 years, educated heterosexuals who mainly presented with fever and weight loss. 68% of spouses knew their HIV status and among them 36% were HIV positive. Majority of them were categorised under stage 3. There was an improvement in mean CD4 count by around 200. ZDV +LMV+NVP regime showed a significant increase in mean CD4count over the other three regimes and there was statistically significant correlation.

Conclusion Most of the HIV patients were young educated heterosexual males and showed a significant increase in the CD4 cell count after 6 months of antiretroviral therapy.