Clinical Evaluation of an Affordable Qualitative Viral Failure Assay for HIV Using Dried Blood Spots in Uganda.

ABSTRACT:

Background

WHO recommends regular viral load (VL) monitoring of patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for timely detection of virological failure, prevention of acquired HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) and avoiding unnecessary switching to second-line ART. However, the cost and complexity of routine VL testing remains prohibitive in most resource limited settings (RLS). We evaluated a simple, low-cost, qualitative viral-failure assay (VFA) on dried blood spots (DBS) in three clinical settings in Uganda.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional diagnostic accuracy study in three HIV/AIDS treatment centres at the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Uganda. The VFA employs semi-quantitative detection of HIV-1 RNA amplified from the LTR gene. We used paired dry blood spot (DBS) and p

SUBMITTER: Balinda SN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4732948 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature