FG Approves Lab Evaluation Of HIV With Rapid Test Kits

The Federal Ministry of Health on Monday approved the conduct of laboratory evaluation of insti HIV 1/2, and insti Multiplex Dual HIV 1/2, both HIV test kits, and Syphilis antibody rapid test kits.
The National Coordinator, National AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) and Hepatitis Control Programme (NASCP) Dr Araoye Segilola, said this at the dissemination of the antibody rapid test kits in Abuja.
According to him, the result of the evaluation shows that insti HIV 1/2 has specificity and sensitivity of 99.7 per cent.
Segilola, said that Insti multiplex HIV 1/2 syphilis antibody on its part had sensitivity and specificity of 100 per cent.
He said that the test kit was therefore, recommended as a first line kit in the National HIV testing algorithm.
He said that Nigeria did an evaluation of HIV rapid test kits using the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and got appropriate evaluation of HIV Testing Techniques in Africa, where three phases of evaluation were recommended.
“These phases are: phase, I Laborary based, phase II, Field based and phase III, continuous monitoring of the algorithm performance.
“National HIV testing algorithms were developed from these rounds of evaluation conducted and all the test kits are antibody based kits,” he said.
He disclosed that more than 1.9 million Nigerians were infected with HIV with about 1.1 million on Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART).