A Simple Phosphate-Buffered-Saline-Based Extraction Method Improves Specificity of HIV Viral Load Monitoring Using Dried Blood Spots

摘要

More than 15.8 million people infected with HIV are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART), and the number of people accessing ART has increased by 84% since 2010 (1). A significant proportion of that growth has been through national treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa. This large-scale public health approach to HIV treatment and care will need to provide lifelong therapy with appropriate clinical and laboratory monitoring to ensure programmatic success (2). In 2013, the WHO introduced routine viral load (VL) monitoring into guidelines for the management of individuals living with HIV in resource- and capacity-limited settings (3). By 2015, only a few countries in sub-Saharan Africa were providing universal access to routine viral load monitoring (4). In Zimbabwe, in 2015, only 5% of the patients in the national ART program had received viral load testing (Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Zimbabwe [MOHCWZ]).