New HIV test for infants seen as possible breakthrough for sub-Saharan Africa
by Peter Frost And Melissa Harris
In HIV-plagued sub-Saharan Africa, it can take up to three months for mothers to learn whether their babies have the deadly virus, delaying what could be life-sustaining treatment.
Many of the far-flung and rudimentary public health clinics aren't equipped with reliable electricity and refrigeration, let alone the sophisticated laboratories required to process HIV tests for infants.
Tests must be sent off to a lab. Because of that delay, even among women willing to walk miles to get their infants tested, more than half never receive the results.
A team at Northwestern University say they are on the verge of addressing the problem. In October, they planned to unveil a new HIV test for infants of mothers who have tested positive for the virus, which promises a result in less than an hour at a palatable cost.
Infants diagnosed early can be placed on anti-retroviral drugs that help them manage the disease for decades.
Designed by David Kelso, a Northwestern biomedical engineering professor, with the help of others, the new medical device is targeted specifically for testing infants in rural Africa.
Existing tests for infants in the developed world rely on expensive and sophisticated equipment.
Kelso's device is about the size of a single-slice toaster and runs on battery power. It was designed to be used by lightly trained nurses or community health workers.
His team aims to drive the cost of performing each test below $10 and get the equipment in as many rural public health clinics as possible.
The device will first be evaluated in five clinics in Mozambique and eventually be expanded to rural settings, where researchers will measure the accuracy of the test, how its availability affects the number of infants tested and how many of those found to be HIV positive are treated.
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