Healthy Outlook Blog

Rapid Testing Technology Could Slow the Spread of AIDS

By Andrea King Collier | Posted March 3 2011

AIDS, AIDS testing, Everyday Health, Global Health, Good Habits, health, Health Information, Health Tips, Healthy Behaviors, HIV, innovation, Lifestyle, rapid HIV testing, Research, Technology

Guest blogger Andrea King Collier is a freelance health and medical journalist from Lansing, Michigan.

New technology that produces rapid HIV screening test results may be able to impact the spread of the disease and the mortality rate. The proprietary technology from Chembio Diagnostic Systems is called Dual Path Platform, and allows test results in 20 minutes. The medical community and activists agree that improved testing will go a long way to help reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in this country. It is estimated that over a million people are living with the HIV virus, yet one in five doesn’t know it.

Chembio CEO Lawrence Siebert says, “along with the access to available antiretroviral regimens, testing means that more people will be able to get into treatment and go on with their lives.” Siebert says the DPP tests are 10 to 50 times more sensitive than the lateral flow assay based tests that take longer to provide results.

Two of the company’s DPP products are already being used in the U.S., and one more is still in clinical trials in the U.S., but is approved for use in many other countries. Seibert says that the next horizon for testing is a new seroconversion technology, an antibody/antigen test that will allow for testing and diagnosis at the earliest stages.

Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD., Director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention says “testing is especially key for men who have sex with men.” According to Fenton nearly 20 percent of men in this demographic are living with HIV/AIDS, yet because of lack of testing, 44 percent of those men do not know they are infected. The CDC’s Vital Signs Report released in November of 2010, states younger men and African Americans of both genders are least likely to be tested or know their status. The epidemic is nearly 30 years old yet, there are still over 56,000 new infections and 14,000 AIDS related deaths in the U.S. each year.

CONNECT THE DOTS

For more information on HIV/AIDS read the CDC’s Vital Signs Report. The Kaiser Family Foundation has released several reports on HIV/AIDS and on the importance of testing. Watch the video of Chembio’s Lawrence Siebert discussing rapid testing for HIV/AIDS.

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