Accurate dried blood spots collection in the community using non-medically trained personnel could support scaling up routine viral load testing in resource limited settings.

ABSTRACT: Regular plasma HIV-RNA testing for persons living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) is now the global standard, but as many as 60% of persons in Africa today on ART do not have access to standard laboratory HIV-RNA assays. As a result, patients in Zambia often receive treatment without any means of determining true virologic failure, which poses a risk of premature switch of ART regimens and widespread HIV drug resistance. Dry blood spots (DBS) on the other hand require unskilled personnel and less complex storage supply chain so are ideal to capture viral-load results from HIV patients outside clinic settings. We assess collection of DBS in the community using non-medically trained personnel (NMP) and documented challenges. We trained 23 NMP to collect DBS from lost to follow-up (L

SUBMITTER: Sikombe K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6797100 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature