Scaling Up HIV Rapid Testing in Developing Countries

Scaling up HIV rapid testing in developing countries: comprehensive approach for implementing quality assurance.

In the last few years, the use of HIV rapid testing has expanded worldwide in response to the call for universal access to prevention, care, and treatment by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization. HIV rapid testing is performed by people with varied skills in laboratory and nonlaboratory settings. Accurate HIV diagnostic testing is the first step to identifying infected persons for follow-up...

Rapid oral fluid-based point-of-care HIV testing: applicability in developing countries.

In India, specific high risk sub-populations (i.e. sex workers, clients of sex workers, men who have sex with men and intravenous drug users) and their interactions with susceptible populations (i.e. spouses and partners) have created a complex heterogeneous HIV epidemic. An estimated 5.7 million individuals were reported to be living with HIV in India, although this estimate excludes individua...

Unfinished business--expanding HIV testing in developing countries.

HIV testing in developing countries: What is required?

HIV diagnostic and follow up testing are usually done in laboratory settings. However, in developing countries there is a need to decentralize testing as the majority of the population lives in rural settings. In developing countries stringent quality assurance (QA) practices, which include appropriate training, development of standard operating procedures, maintenance of operator proficiency, ...

Scaling up HIV self-testing in China and Africa

HIV self-testing has yet to scale up, with one exception – China. Approximately one-third of men who have sex with men (MSM) report HIV self-testing in China, with many of these self-tests representing the first time that the men ever tested [1]. HIV self-testing scale-up may be related to unmet demand, self-testing partnerships and local entrepreneurship. First, the centralised, facility-based...