Thank you for your question. There are an estimated 300,000 cases of shingles every year in the USA alone.
Shingles causes painful skin lesions that occur along nerve tracts, often on the truck of the body.
A person can get shingles regardless of whether they have HIV or not. When shingles is associated with HIV, it generally appears when the CD4 cell count goes below 500. This usually occurs years after infection with the HIV virus. If a person has been diagnosed with shingles, they should talk to their doctor to determine what factors may have led to reactivation of the varicella zoster virus. If the symptoms of shingles are unusually very severe, a person should talk to their doctor about being tested for HIV and other diseases of the immune system.