Background Management of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHA) in the Tenkodogo regional hospital was carried out by a team of 7 nurses and 4 physicians engaged also about their function in the management of non-HIV-infected patients. Only one of these nurses had already received specific training (inter-university graduate) on the management of HIV infection. This team had to manage actually 1213 PLHA including 505 under antiretroviral treatment (ART).

Objective We aimed to describe the activities carried out by nurses of this team in the management of PLHA.

Methods We retrospectively reviewed all consultation activities for PLHA by the 7 nurses of the HIV-infected patient’s management team at the Tenkodogo regional hospital from January to June 2011. The daily consultation registers of these nurses were our data sources.

Results 2709 consultations of PLHA (any reason confused) were carried out. The consultations mean was 451.5/month. 1886 ART renewals prescription have been made, including 1767 first line and 119 second line treatment. 44 PLHA were newly treated by ART during the study period. 708 (26.1%) cases of diseases frequently associated with HIV were carried out. Suspected and treated pathologies were among other simple malaria in 262 cases (37%), 177 cases of pulmonary diseases (25%) including 03 cases of tuberculosis, 109 cases of gastroenteritis acute (15.4%), 29 oral candidiasis and 29 sexual transmitted infections (4.1% each) and 4 cases of Herpes Zoster (0.6%). For these diseases, the treatment success rate was 95.5%. 16 hospitalizations have been made and 16 cases of consultations have been referred to physicians.

Conclusion The nurse can be a resource used to deal with the lack of physicians in management of PLHA especially if he received a specific training. This management training should be a key point in its basic studies curriculum in developing countries.