adminPaidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Government has procured 30 HIV testing machines for children to be used at primary health care facilities across the country. In an interview with The Herald at the just-ended 18th International Conference on Aids and STIs in Africa (ICASA) held in Harare, laboratory services director Mr Douglas Mangwanya said eight of the machines were procured by UNICEF while the remaining were bought using funds from the Global Fund.
“We used to have big machines which were at our convectional laboratories, but now with the coming in of these point of care machines, we need to decentralise so that the tests can be done on site. For example, we want exposed children from Gokwe to be tested of HIV right at their nearest health care facility,” said Mr Mangwanya.
He said following positive results on the use of the point of care machines by clinics, Government plans to procure more machines for all districts.
“These new machines are very vital in that they will help in early diagnosis and early treatment of infants exposed to HIV while reducing the number of mortality due to HIV,” said Mr Mangwanya.
Presenting the study results at a satellite symposium titled: “Implementing point of care HIV viral load and early infant diagnosis, considerations and challenges for Africa,” National Microbiology Reference Laboratory coordinator Dr Sekesai Zinyowera said the point of care machines were the way to go for Africa.
Dr Zinyowera said study results from three countries (Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) showed that the machines were as effective as the big machines currently in use at conventional laboratories and can be operated by nurses at a rural clinic.
“Evaluations of the three countries were independent, but we got more or less the same results that the Samba machines (point of care) are as effective as the huge machines in terms of results and can be operated easily by nurses at a primary healthcare facility.
“The big machines required highly skilled manpower and enough space, which cannot be found at smaller health institutions so what is important now is that these point of care can now be put at low levels so that children get their tests done there,” she said.
According to national statistics from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, less than 50 percent of children with HIV are on treatment and testing of the children was one of the reasons cited for the low uptake of paediatric treatment.
Initially there was only one machine at Harare Central Hospital for paediatric HIV testing. In 2013, Government decentralised testing sites to Mpilo Central Hospital and early this year another machine was bought for Mutare General Hospital.
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