HIV Testing & Diagnosis
Many Americans Still Get HIV Diagnosis Years After Infection, CDC Says
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 29 November 2017 00:00
- Written by Liz Highleyman
Many people with HIV in the United States are still being diagnosed with HIV late, and therefore are not getting the full therapeutic and prevention benefits of starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) early, according to the latest Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released in advance of World AIDS Day.
CDC Continues to Recommend Annual HIV Testing for Gay Men
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Thursday, 21 September 2017 00:00
- Written by Liz Highleyman
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reaffirmed its recommendation that sexually active gay and bisexual men should undergo at least annual HIV screening, according to a report in the August 11 edition of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. However, some local providers advise more frequent HIV and sexually transmitted infection tests.
CROI 2016: Partner Notification of HIV Status Is Feasible and Effective In African Settings
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 06 April 2016 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
Partner notification programs, offering testing to the sexual partners of people newly diagnosed with HIV, have rarely been implemented in African countries, but can be highly effective there, studies presented at the recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2016)show. A randomized study in Kenya found that partner notification services were able to test 42% of partners mentioned, increasing testing rates 4-fold.
CROI 2017: Point-of-Care Testing Improves Infant HIV Diagnosis Rate, Treatment, and Retention
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 08 March 2017 00:00
- Written by Keith Alcorn
Using a point-of-care test to diagnose HIV in infants significantly improved retention in care, speeded up antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation, and increased the proportion of infants who started treatment, a large randomized study in Mozambique has found. The results were presented at the 2017 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections last month in Seattle.
CROI 2016: HIV Home Testing During Pregnancy Doubles Male Partners Who Test
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Friday, 04 March 2016 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
A program of home visits, partner education, and HIV testing for couples in Kenya was able to double the proportion of men who tested during their partner’s pregnancy, Carey Farquhar from the University of Washington reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2016) in Boston last week. Partners became aware of each other’s HIV status without this being linked to an increase in intimate partner violence.
CROI 2017: How Should HIV Self-Testing Be Provided?
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Tuesday, 28 February 2017 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
At a session on HIV self-testing at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this month in Seattle, researchers presented findings from studies looking at some of the unanswered questions about self-testing and how best to implement it, with examples from Malawi and the United States.
IAS 2015: HIV Self-Testing May Help "Hard to Reach" Learn Their Status, but Uncertainties Remain
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 12 August 2015 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
HIV self-testing (or home testing) is likely to have an important place in future global HIV strategies, but at the moment there are significant gaps in the evidence base of how it may best be made available, to which populations, and with what kind of support. So while the World Health Organization (WHO) has clearly signaled its enthusiasm for the approach, its new guidance on HIV testing, launched at the 8th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention last month in Vancouver, reviews what we know so far about self-testing but does not actually recommend it. Several self-testing studies were also presented at the conference.
World AIDS Day: World Health Organization Urges Scale-Up of HIV Self-Testing
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Tuesday, 29 November 2016 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week launched new guidelines encouraging countries to support self-testing in an effort to get more people to learn their HIV status -- the first step toward getting on effective treatment, achieving viral suppression, halting disease progression, and preventing onward HIV transmission. WHO estimates that only 60% of people with HIV are aware of their status, and says that self-testing can help countries meet the UN target of diagnosing 90% of all people with HIV by 2020.
IAS 2015: WHO Urges More HIV Testing Outside Clinical Settings, Targeting Those Who Need It Most
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Thursday, 23 July 2015 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
In addition to recommending that routine HIV testing in medical settings be expanded to reach new groups, the World Health Organization’s new guidance on HIV testing also recommends the delivery of testing by non-medical 'lay providers," often in community settings. The guidance urges planners to make careful, strategic choices about which HIV testing interventions will be best able to reach individuals with undiagnosed HIV. New approaches may be needed to reach key populations.
AIDS 2016: Market Constraints and Uncertainties May Limit Scale-Up of HIV Self-Testing
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 10 August 2016 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
There are 4 different HIV self-test products now manufactured and approved for sale in the U.S. and Europe, with a further 9 in the pipeline, but uncertainties about the level of demand and the prices that will be paid are limiting manufacturers’ interest in bringing products to market. Moreover, while self-testing may have the greatest potential in sub-Saharan Africa, the fragmented regulatory environment there could hamper scale-up in the region, Petra Stankard of Populations Services International said at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.
June 27 Is National HIV Testing Day
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Saturday, 27 June 2015 00:00
- Written by HIVandHepatitis.com
June 27 is National HIV Testing Day (NHTD), an opportunity to promote HIV screening and awareness of its importance as an entry point to the continuum of care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 14% of people living with HIV do not know they are infected, but new CDC data released this week show that HIV diagnosis rates vary substantially across the country, ranging from 77% in Louisiana to 90% or higher in 5 states.
AIDS 2016: Access to Home Testing Doubles Frequency of HIV Testing Among Australian Gay Men
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Tuesday, 02 August 2016 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
A randomized trial conducted with Australian gay men has shown that easy access to self-testing kits can double the frequency with which men test for HIV, with an even greater increase among men who used to test infrequently, Muhammad Jamil of the Kirby Institute reported at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.
BHIVA 2015: Undiagnosed HIV Infections Picked Up When Testing People with Other Medical Conditions
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Friday, 01 May 2015 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
A Europe-wide project offering HIV tests to hospital patients with glandular fever symptoms, swollen lymph nodes, a low white blood cell count, a low platelet count, or pneumonia has found that over 3% of tested patients had previously undiagnosed HIV, according to a presentation at the British HIV Association (BHIVA) annual meeting last month in Brighton. This significantly exceeds the level of 0.1% HIV prevalence at which routine HIV testing interventions are considered to be cost-effective.
June 27 Is National HIV Testing Day
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Thursday, 23 June 2016 00:00
- Written by HIVandHepatitis.com
June 27 is National HIV Testing Day (#NHTD), an opportunity to promote HIV screening and awareness of its importance as a gateway to the continuum of care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 out of 8 of the estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV do not know they are infected, putting their long-term health at risk.
FDA Approves Roche's Simultaneous Blood Test for HIV, HBV, and HCV
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Thursday, 29 January 2015 00:00
- Written by Roche
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Roche Diagnostics' new cobas TaqScreen MPX screening test, which can simultaneously detect genetic material of HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) in donated blood and plasma, the company recently announced.
Diagnosis of Early HIV Infections May Have Contributed to Fall in Incidence in San Diego
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 25 May 2016 00:00
- Written by Michael Carter
An HIV testing program targeting individuals with acute or early infection likely contributed to a decline in incident or new infections in San Diego after 2008, investigators report in the May 11 online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The Early Test initiative involved negative HIV antibody tests being rescreened using nucleic acid testing (NAT) -- a technique capable of detecting new HIV infections within 7-10 days after exposure.
IDWeek 2014: Social Network Strategies Encourage HIV Testing
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Friday, 10 October 2014 00:00
- Written by IDWeek
Face-to-face social networking among peers is a more effective and proactive way to identify people with HIV infection than standard counseling, testing, and referral methods, according to study findings presented yesterday at the IDWeek 2014 conference in Philadelphia. In an analysis of 45 sites in Wisconsin, researchers found that social networking strategies identified a higher proportion of people who tested HIV positive than traditional methods.
BHIVA 2016: First Data on Uptake of HIV Self-Testing in the U.K.
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Sunday, 08 May 2016 00:00
- Written by Roger Pebody
Between April 2015 and February 2016, almost 28,000 people have paid £29.95 (about US$45) for a kit allowing them to test for HIV at home, according to a presentation at the recent British HIV Association (BHIVA) conference in Manchester. Marketing on Grindr has been important in driving sales, which have been concentrated in non-urban areas.
June 27 Is National HIV Testing Day
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Friday, 27 June 2014 00:00
- Written by HIVandHepatitis.com
June 27 is National HIV Testing Day (NHTD), an annual opportunity to promote HIV screening and awareness. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 6 people with HIV do not know they are infected, and therefore are not receiving the care and treatment that could improve their own health and prevent transmission. The CDC this week issued new recommendations using modern technology to facilitate earlier diagnosis.
Opt-Out HIV, HBV, and HCV Testing in Emergency Departments Identifies Many New Infections
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Wednesday, 13 April 2016 00:00
- Written by Michael Carter
A week-long pilot study involving 9 U.K. emergency departments has shown that routine opt-out testing for HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) can identify a significant number of previously undiagnosed infections, according to study results published in the March edition of HIV Medicine.
Nearly 25% of HIV Diagnosed in Emergency Rooms Is Acute Infection
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- Category: HIV Testing & Diagnosis
- Published on Friday, 27 June 2014 00:00
- Written by HIVandHepatitis.com
Only a small percentage of the more than 22,000 people tested for HIV at an emergency department in Phoenix were found to be infected, but of these nearly one-quarter had acute or recent infection, during which viral load is high and onward transmission is more likely, according to a study published in the June 22 advance edition of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
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