adminPaidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Government will soon roll out new HIV testing devices for infants and viral load machines suitable for use in clinics, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa has said.Dr Parirenyatwa said Government, through the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, would procure a total of 100 Simple Amplification Based Assay (SAMBA) machines which will be distributed in 25 sites across the country.
Dr Parirenyatwa said the machines can also be used for viral load testing in adults to complement the already existing viral load testing machines and were expected to benefit at least 100 000 people annually.
“For the first time, patients in rural areas can be tested for HIV viral load at the point-of-care and know their status within two hours,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
Dr Parirenyatwa said the machines were key to achieving the UNAIDS 90-90-90 goals for early infant diagnosis and HIV treatment monitoring.
The 90-90-90 goals aim to have at least 90 percent of HIV infected individuals diagnosed by the year 2020 with 90 percent of them receiving treatment and of those on treatment at least 90 percent of them must have their viral load suppressed to undetectable levels.
He said in line with these goals, Government aimed to increase viral load coverage from the current five percent to 50 percent by end of 2017, with an aim to reach to 90 percent by 2019.
“Government has made a concerted effort to achieve the 90-90-90 goal as set out by UNAIDS. In order to achieve these ambitious targets, 60 percent of HIV viral load testing will need to be carried out at point-of-care. Consequently, the successful implementation of SAMBA in Zimbabwe will play an important role considering the reduced costs of SAMBA machines,” said Dr Parirenyatwa
Laboratory director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Mr Douglas Mangwanya said current diagnosis for HIV in infants was centralised to three referral health institutions from Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare yet there were over 1 500 sites offering prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV.
He said this meant all clinics refer samples for HIV diagnosis in infants at risk of contracting HIV to these three centres, a process that takes several months before results are returned.
“We acknowledge that the current set up is not ideal and this is why we are pushing for these point of care machines,” said Mr Mangwanya.
Director for Diagnostics for the Real World (DRW), a spin out company from University of Cambridge which developed the machines, Dr Helen Lee said the SAMBA machine was a simple, accurate and robust point-of-care technology developed specifically for use in resource-limited settings.
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