Interestingly, we found no statistically significant effect of HCV coinfection on either pre-ART or long-term CD4 z scores (P = 0.80 or P = 0.77, respectively), suggesting that although recovery was slower in coinfected children, they started ART with similar CD4 counts, and on long-term therapy do eventually achieve similar CD4 levels to their monoinfected peers. Here, CD4 is linked to coinfection.