Background
In 2013, the French
Health Authority approved the use of HIV self-tests in pharmacies for the
general public. This screening tool will allow an increase in the number of
screenings and a reduction in the delay between infection and diagnosis, thus
reducing the risk of further infections. We previously compared 5 HIV-self test
candidates (4 oral fluid and one whole blood) and demonstrated that the whole
blood HIV test exhibited the optimal level of performance
(sensitivity/specificity). We studied the practicability of an easy-to-use
finger-stick whole blood HIV self-test “autotest VIH®”,
when used in the general public.
Methods and Materials
This multicenter
cross-sectional study involved 411 participants from the Parisian region (AIDES
and HF association) between April and July 2014 and was divided into 2 separate
studies: one evaluating the capability of participants to obtain an
interpretable result using only the information notice, and a second evaluating
the interpretation of test results, using a provided chart.
Results
A total of 411
consenting participants, 264 in the first study and 147 in the second, were
included. All participants were over 18 years of age. In the first study, 99.2%
of the 264 participants correctly administered the auto-test, and 21.2% needed,
upon their request, telephone assistance. Ninety-two percent of participants
responded that the test was easy/very easy to perform, and 93.5% did not find
any difficulty obtaining a sufficient good quantity of blood. In the second
study, 98.1% of the 147 participants correctly interpreted the results. The
reading/interpretation errors concerned the negative (2.1%) or the
indeterminate (3.3%) auto-tests.
Conclusions
The success rate of
handling and interpretation of this self-test is very satisfactory, demonstrating
its potential for use by the general public and its utility to increase the
number of opportunities to detect HIV patients.
Below: Ability of participants to read and interpret the HIV self-test results using a chart from a panel of 6 standardized tests
Full article at: http://goo.gl/yxclcq
By:
Dimitrios Paraskevis, Editor
3Aides, Paris, France
4Department of Infectious Diseases, Hôpital
Universitaire Bichat Claude Bernard, Paris, France
5Centre de Biologie du Chemin Vert (CBCV),
Paris, France
6INSERM INED, U822, Hôpital Kremlin
Bicêtre, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France
7Department of Infectious Diseases, Hôpital
Tenon, Paris, France
University of
Athens, Medical School, GREECE
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no
competing interests exist.
Conceived and designed the experiments: TP SK JA
GK JML JPT GP. Performed the experiments: SK JA GK EB. Analyzed the data: JPT
SK TP GP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TP CG GK EB GP. Wrote
the paper: TP CG EB GP.
* E-mail: rf.snaelro-rhc@kcuzarp.yrreiht
More at: https://twitter.com/hiv insight
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