Gasebalwe Seretse and Maranyane Ngwanaamotho
4 November 2009
The introduction of a medical instrument that is said to check the CD4 count in HIV positive people and avail results in about 20 minutes by a South African medical company has raised the question whether a speedy determination of the CD4 count is necessary in saving lives.
Speaking in an interview with Mmegi yesterday, Glynis Davids of Inverness Medical Innovations said the Pima machine, which she called 'the first truly point of care instrument to check CD4 count' can help speed up the process of patients whose CD4 count is low, getting help timely.
"With the availability of Pima, one can get tested for HIV/AIDS and if the result come back positive, their CD4 count can be determined and if necessary they can get on treatment immediately and all this can happen in a day," Davids said, adding that in the medical world, it is feared that 50 percent of HIV positive people especially in sub-Saharan Africa die while waiting for the determination of their CD4 counts.
She further said that even though most African governments cannot afford it, it is advisable for all people who test HIV positive to get on anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment because it has been discovered that the viral load is very high soon after infection.
However, Ava Avalos, who is a TB and HIV care advisor at the Ministry of Health, said that in Botswana, it takes a week or two at the most, for patients to know their CD4 count. She further said that the process of checking one's CD4 count starts with voluntary counselling. Blood sample is then taken to be tested in local clinics and hospitals.
She added that when people come to the clinic or hospital ill, they get immediate treatment for the illness in question before proceeding to stages of checking the CD4 count. She said that for this reason, it is highly unlikely that patients die while waiting for their CD4 count results.
"When a patient has CD4 count of 250 or less, we put them on treatment immediately," she said.
Avalos added that when a patient has CD4 count more than 250 they advise the sufferer to come back every three months to keep checking if their count is constant or falling.
Pima, which is specially designed to combat the impact of HIV/AIDS in the sub-Saharan African region, would be launched in South Africa first where it is undergoing clinical trial.
Other trials will be undertaken in Mozambique and Ethiopia before Pima is launched in the region in 2010.
The instrument, which is manufactured in Germany, is user-friendly since it can even be operated by anyone and that it needs no maintenance.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
