Can HIV reverse transcriptase activity assay be a low-cost alternative for viral load monitoring in resource-limited settings?

  • Home / Can HIV reverse transcriptase activity assay be a low-cost alternative for viral load monitoring in resource-limited settings?

Can HIV reverse transcriptase activity assay be a low-cost alternative for viral load monitoring in resource-limited settings?

Objective

To evaluate the performance and cost of an HIV reverse transcriptase-enzyme activity (HIV-RT) assay in comparison to an HIV-1 RNA assay for routine viral load monitoring in resource limited settings.

Design

A cohort-based longitudinal study.

Setting

Two antiretroviral therapy (ART) centres in Karnataka state, South India, providing treatment under the Indian AIDS control programme.

Participants

A cohort of 327 HIV-1-infected Indian adult patients initiating first-line ART.

Outcome measures

Performance and cost of an HIV-RT assay (ExaVir Load V3) in comparison to a gold standard HIV-1 RNA assay (Abbott m2000rt) in a cohort of 327 Indian patients before (WK00) and 4 weeks (WK04) after initiation of first-line therapy.

Results

Plasma viral load was determined by an HIV-1 RNA assay and an HIV-RT assay in 629 samples (302 paired samples and 25 single time point samples at WK00) obtained from 327 patients. Overall, a strong correlation of r=0.96 was observed, with good correlation at WK00 (r=0.84) and at WK04 (r=0.77). Bland-Altman analysis of all samples showed a good level of agreement with a mean difference (bias) of 0.22 log10copies/mL. The performance of ExaVir Load V3 was not negatively affected by a nevirapine/efavirenz based antiretroviral regimen. The per test cost of measuring plasma viral load by the Abbott m2000rt and ExaVir Load V3 assays in a basic lab setting was $36.4 and $16.8, respectively.

Conclusions

The strong correlation between the HIV-RT and HIV-1 RNA assays suggests that the HIV-RT assay can be an affordable alternative option for monitoring patients on antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings.

Trial registration number

ISRCTN79261738.

About Post Author

Medical CPD & News

The Digitalis CPD trawler searches the web for all the latest news and journals.

Privacy Preference Center

Close your account?

Your account will be closed and all data will be permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. Are you sure?

Are you sure?

By disagreeing you will no longer have access to our site and will be logged out.