| ABSTRACT A new point-of-care HIV viral load, mPIMA HIV-1/2 VL, Abbott, USA, has been recently developed. This point-of-care viral load requires no skilled person to run and uses a small plasma volume (50 µL). However, obtaining 50 µL of plasma can be a challenge in limited resource settings. We validated a simple and easy method to obtain enough amount of plasma to run a point-of-care viral load. The study utilized 149 specimens from patients failing antiretroviral therapy. At least 250 µL of whole blood was collected in a microtube/EDTA from fingerstick (fs-plasma) and immediately centrifuged. Parallel collection of venous blood to obtain plasma (vp-plasma) was used to compare performance in a point-of-care viral load assay and in methodology used in... |
