INTERNATIONAL healthcare firm, Abbott will soon be rolling out a revolutionary viral load technological breakthrough the m-PIMA HIV-1/2 VL viral load point-of-care test in Zimbabwe. The turnaround time is only 70 minutes, hence increasing the chances of initiating more people on Anti retro Viral Therapy (ART) and eliminating new transmissions.
By Michael Gwarisa
The move is in line with UNAIDS 90-90-90 target, where 90 percent of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status and another 90 percent of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and 2020, 90 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.
In an interview with HealthTimes in Harare, Abbott Commercial Vice President, Willem Pretorius said their new technology would fast-track Zimbabwe’s road to eradicating AIDS through ensuring people living with HIV and on ART, maintain an undetectable viral load which cannot be transmitted to the next person.
“We are here in Zimbabwe to introduce a really revolutionary breakthrough technology that will make it possible to do a viral load test at the lowest levels of the healthcare system. Your traditional viral load is usually conducted in the laboratory and its actually quite an advanced test where you need highly trained laboratory staff to be able to do the testing.
“Most of the technology is usually in special facilities where regular tests are done. You usually need three clean rooms, the first room is usually where you extract the nucleic acids so in the case of HIV virus, it is the R and A that we extract. Then you move to the next room where you will amplify the nucleic acids and make copies of the nucleic acids and then in the final room you will detect it so that you quantify it and you can say this person has got so many copies of the virus,” said
The m-PIMA HIV-1/2 VL is equipped with these sophisticated technologies all housed in a small gadget the size of a mailbox. By providing viral load test results in less than 70 minutes, this life-changing technology allows patients to get tested and treated in the same visit and then get back to leading their best life.
“Our technology basically have all three of those highly sophisticated laboratory rooms in a small disposable cartridge that runs on a little machine not bigger than a mailbox and all the operator has to do is to take a very small sample of plasma, 50 micro litres, so it’s like a drop of plasma and load it into the cartridge, close the cartridge, put the cartridge in the machine and basically start the machine.
“We usually say if you can operate a mobile phone, you can actually do this test, that’s how simple this is.”
He added that this technology stands a greater chance of ensuring that the UNAIDS triple 90s target is attained.
“One of the bigger challenges that we have got to reach UNAIDS 90-90-90 by 2020 is to do with last 90. The first 90 is usually that we want to know that 90 percent of person infected with HIV known their status, the second 90 is that we want to put those who know their status are put on effective ART and the last 90 is we want to know those person on ART have got an undetectable viral load.
“We have made very good progress on these first two 90s. Here in Zimbabwe for instance to date 85 percent of the patients that have been infected with the virus know their status and of the adults, 84 percent that know their status are on ART, in children it’s actually better, 89 percent of children on ART.
“Where we still have a lot of work to do is to get to that last 90 and we believe this technology will make it possible to deploy viral load testing lower in the healthcare cascade so that places that may not have laboratories and places that may not have laboratory technicians will be served” added Pretorius.
The m-PIMA HIV-1/2 VL, the first viral load point-of-care test technology is currently awaiting World Health Organisation (WHO) pre-qualification which will be availed very soon and progress has already been made to avail the technology in a number of African countries, Zimbabwe included.
Meanwhile, Abbott’s Director Medical and Scientific Affairs, Dr Kuku Appiah said the only way to stop AIDS is through ensuring everyone who tests positive for HIV is put on effective ART.
“Specifically with the viral load, it is the measure of the assumed number of particles of the HIV virus in the blood. What we are aiming for is for an undetectable or suppressed viral load in an individual where the viral load is less than a 1000 copies.
“For an individual , we want one to have an undetectable viral load. According to the UNAIDS, persons who have got undetectable viral load, they will not be able to transmit the virus to the next person so that is the only way we can end AIDS,” said Dr Appiah.
She added that HIV patients should also adhere to treatment and go for constant counselling sessions even after being tested and initiated on ART to ensure they don’t drop off treatment.
