Background: For the establishment and monitoring of the immune status, CD4 count is critical.
Objectives: To determine the CD4 count range of apparently healthy Nigerians resident in Ilorin and compare with the national value.
Methods: An automated blood analyzer was used to determine the full blood count and CD4 count. The percentage of CD4 count was derived by using other variables.
Results: Of the 1205 participants, the reference CD4 count (percentage of CD4) range for adult was 400 to 1288 cells/mm3 (19%-48%) and for children was 582 to 3652 cells/mm3 (17%-50%). CD4 count and percentage of CD4 were significantly ( P = .001) higher in females than in males, and the CD4 count declined significantly with increasing age ( r = -.174, P ≤ .0001). The percentage of CD4 count shows less variation with age ( r = -.051, P = .076). Adult residents of Ilorin had significantly lower absolute mean CD4 count (808 ± 260) than that of the national reference values of 847.0 ± 307.0 cells/mm3 ( P = .001).
Conclusion: We therefore advocate the use of CD4 count range derived in this study is lower than that of the national reference values.
Keywords: CD4 count; Nigeria; T lymphocyte; range.