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Tinomuda Chakanyuka, Senior Reporter
KWEKWE General Hospital says it requires more point-of-care HIV testing machines for viral load testing to cater for an overwhelming number of patients requiring the service.
The hospital has a catchment of 46 rural and urban clinics and three district hospitals all of which send blood samples to Kwekwe for viral load testing.
Kwekwe General Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Patricia Mapanda said the hospital was operating with one point-of-care machine, which can only process 20 samples a day. The hospital is one of the 25 health centre across the country that received Samba II point-of-care HIV testing machines in a Government pilot programme.
Dr Mapanda said due to limited capacity the hospital sends other samples to Gweru Provincial Hospital where they take two months to be processed and sent back to Kwekwe.
Point-of-care machines have a shorter turn around period for results of about 70 minutes, allowing health care workers to quickly make clinical intervention on patients, if there is need.
Dr Mapanda said the hospital needed three more machines that could be dispatched to other centres within its catchment that record high volumes of patients requiring viral load testing.
She cited Silobela District Hospital and Zhombe Mission Hospital as potential centres where the additional machines can be installed to ease the burden on Kwekwe General Hospital.
“Our appeal to the Government is if we could have more of these Samba II machines, it would ease pressure.
“We are requesting at least four machines, one that will be put here and three at other centres in our catchment to decentralise the service and bring it closer to the people,” she said.
Added Dr Mapanda, “At the moment, with the Samba II machine, we are only able to do 20 samples a day. With an additional machine we will do more.
“If you consider that some of the patients come from as far as 150km away, you then realise that there is need to decentralise the service.
“So if we are to have four more machines, one here and the other three in other centres, it will ease our pressure,” she said.
Since the receiving the Samba II machine in February this year, Kwekwe General Hospital has managed to conduct 1 900 tests.
Data from the hospital’s laboratory shows that the hospital processes between 400 to 500 blood samples per day, 150 of which are done using the Samba II machine.
Dr Mapanda said the Samba II machine had improved management of people living with HIV due to shortened turnaround period of results.
“Viral load testing is a great achievement in the management of any patient. It enables us to monitor the progress in treatment and make informed interventions.
“The Samba II machine has improved our clinical practice in a big way and we are grateful for being considered as one of the centres to pilot the technology,” she said.
The Government, with the help of Global Fund, bought 100 Samba II point-of-care machines which were distributed to 25 health centres across all provinces at the beginning of this year.
Zimbabwe is one of the first countries in the world to adopt this new cutting edge technology in HIV diagnosis.
Diagnostics for the Real World (DRW) in partnership with the University of Cambridge are the developers of this technology.
Online Reporter