Utilization of Rapid Diagnostic Testing in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Effects on HIV Prevention
| Autor: | Ato Kwamena Tetteh, Seung Choi, Elizabeth Armstrong-Mensah |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Sub saharan
030231 tropical medicine HIV prevention Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) Developing country COMMENTARY | HIV Testing Disease medicine.disease_cause 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Environmental health parasitic diseases Medicine 030212 general & internal medicine Resource poor Sub-Saharan Africa business.industry Transmission (medicine) General Engineering Diagnostic test virus diseases HIV Rapid HIV testing Positive HIV Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 business |
| Zdroj: | International Journal of Maternal and Child Health and AIDS International Journal of Maternal and Child Health and AIDS, Vol 10, Iss 1 (2020) |
| ISSN: | 2161-864X 2161-8674 |
| Popis: | The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a global threat to health. To prevent and control the disease caused by the virus, developed and developing countries continue to invest heavily in research and equipment so as to accurately detect the virus. The utilization of highly sensitive and effective rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have the potential to detect HIV in high-burden countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Yet, in SSA, challenges associated with HIV-RDT result inaccuracy, HIV misdiagnosis, poor tester capacity, and the improper storage of HIV-RDT kits have negatively impacted the benefits, and threaten to undermine HIV prevention. This paper focuses on the utilization of RDTs in HIV diagnosis in SSA, HIV-RDT challenges, and the effects of HIV-RDT challenges on HIV prevention. Subsequent to reviewing available literature, the authors found that although HIV-RDTs can negatively impact HIVprevention efforts in SSA due to the likelihood of false positive HIV diagnoses, they generally provide quick results for people in resource poor settings, and do not require them to return to the testing sites to obtain their results. Obtaining accurate rapid HIV results means people who test positive can immediately seek care and take steps to prevent future transmission of the virus. Key words: • HIV • Rapid HIV testing • HIV prevention • Sub-Saharan Africa Copyright © 2020 Armstrong-Mensah et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in this journal, is properly cited. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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