New weapon for war against HIV
A revolutionary new do-it-yourself HIV test joins fight against AIDS.
TESTING for HIV/Aids has now been made nearly as simple as using a home-based pregnancy kit with the invention of a new ‘rapid diagnostics tests’ (RTI) applicator.
As the world’s first integrated HIV RTI, the AtomoRapid application has already won a Medical Design Excellence Award in New York last month.
By the middle of next year, it will be on the market as an all-inclusive package containing the small applicator and buffer solution prompting HIV status results within 15 minutes at home.
Showcasing the product in Richards Bay on Wednesday, AtomoDiagnostics Africa Managing Director, Brad Mears, emphasised the importance of fail-safe HIV technology outside a lab.
‘This test puts the power of diagnosis in your own hands.
‘It was specifically designed to improve ease of use and reliability.’
Each year, more than 100 million HIV tests are conducted using existing RTI’s various ‘bits in a box’ that can be inaccurate and expensive.
Mears said this test will change it all.
‘We approached the development of our AtomoRapid testing platform with collaboration in mind and paid special attention to the needs of users.
‘In this way, we were able to engineer out the human errors inherent in the current ‘bits in a box’ testing kits.
‘We’ve already had overwhelming receptiveness from nurses using this product and it also demonstrated excellent performance in NICD (National Institute for Communicable Diseases) evaluations in South Africa with sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 99.8%.
‘It’s simple to use, safe and accurate, greatly improving the testing process that is so critical,’ Mears said.
