Diagnosing children

Diagnosing children features

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  Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics are essential to achieving an AIDS-free generation and improving outcomes in HIV-exposed children

  This edition reviews recent evidence on point-of-care testing, on tests in development, and looks at experience of optimising performance of dried blood spot sampling....

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  South Africa is moving towards an AIDS-free generation, and improving survival in children living with HIV

  Reductions in vertical HIV transmission to infants and improvement in paediatric survival attributable to the scale of and quality improvement of prevention of parent-to-child transmission (PPTCT) and antiretroviral...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  Don’t forget SP: testing untested children

  ‘SP’ (not his real initials) was a ten-year-old boy who died of AIDS in a north London hospital in 2008. He was finally tested for HIV, and...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Happy families

  Sally Farthing is an HIV specialist midwife at West Middlesex Hospital in Isleworth, west London. She praises the measures – and the mothers – who together have sent...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Early infant HIV diagnosis

  This issue provides an overview of early infant diagnosis (EID) of HIV infection in resource-limited settings. ...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  Audit of high infant mortality in Durban hospitals illustrates delivery gap remaining for PMTCT and paediatric ART programmes

  Review of ways in which perinatal and child care may currently fail to identify HIV-infected infants, and what needs to be done to improve linkage...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

Diagnosing children news from aidsmap

• False-negative confirmatory HIV tests in children are frequent after starting ART

  False-negative rapid antibody tests, in the absence of virologic testing at the age of 18 months, in children receiving antiretroviral treatment can result in interruption of treatment, and false-negative results occur with high frequency, according to the results of a ...

  19 September 2012 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• Symptom screen frequently misses HIV in children and delays treatment, Kenyan study shows

  Clinical diagnosis of HIV infection in infants performed poorly and resulted in delayed diagnosis when compared to virologic testing,  a prospective cohort study conducted in Kenya has shown. The findings emphasise the importance of access to virologic testing for ...

  13 September 2012 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• HIV testing at immunisation clinics: an opportunity to identify women and infants who are falling through the cracks?

  Research from Malawi further strengthens the case for using infant immunisation clinics as a key site for maternal and early infant HIV diagnosis, the Nineteenth International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) heard last week in Washington DC. Researchers who performed infant ...

  02 August 2012 | Kelly Safreed-Harmon

• HIV treatment for children: how programmes are improving diagnosis and retention

  “It is unacceptable that children at this point in time are not receiving treatment,” René Ekpini of UNICEF told a satellite session supported by UNICEF, IAS-ILF and MSH last Sunday at the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington ...

  27 July 2012 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• UNITAID commits US$140 million to bring HIV diagnostic technologies to the ‘point of care’

  “UNITAID has announced major investment for cutting-edge point-of-care diagnostic tools essential for better treatment, better detection of resistance, better quality of care in people living with HIV and better diagnosis of HIV for children,” said Dr Denis Broun, Executive ...

  24 July 2012 | Theo Smart

• Malawi: Routine test offer at immunisation clinics improves early infant HIV diagnosis

  Integration of testing for early infant diagnosis was acceptable and feasible at a government immunisation clinic (IC); the proportion of infants who received provider-initiated testing and counselling (PITC) was seven times higher at this sort of clinic than for ...

  13 July 2012 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• Early infant diagnosis for HIV: is it taking place early enough?

  Current early infant diagnosis (EID) protocols may need to be revised in the light of current WHO guidelines on the prevention and treatment of HIV-infection in low-resourced settings, according to Dr. Gayle Sherman of Wits University, South Africa, and ...

  13 March 2012 | Theo Smart

• South Africa's PMTCT programme reduces mother-to-child transmission to under 4%

  Nine years after the start of a national prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme, South Africa’s mother-to-child HIV  transmission (MTCT) rate is under 4% at four to eight weeks after birth, according to South Africa’s first national PMTCT impact evaluation. ...

  19 July 2011 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• Breastfeeding infants with HIV may develop drug resistance from ARVs in breast milk

  Two thirds of breastfeeding infants infected after birth, born to mothers on antiretroviral therapy (ART), developed resistance to one or more antiretroviral drugs according to Clement Zeh and colleagues in a secondary analysis of the Kisumu Breastfeeding Study (KiBS) published ...

  31 March 2011 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• Without improved infant HIV diagnosis, early treatment recommendation may have limited impact

  Early infant HIV diagnosis (EID) is becoming more frequent, according to a retrospective multi-country analysis in Cambodia, Namibia, Senegal and Uganda in 2009, researchers announced today at the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference in Vienna. The 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommend all ...

  20 July 2010 | Carole Leach-Lemens

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Diagnosing children news selected from other sources

• Achieving an AIDS-free generation: Don't forget children living with HIV

  Since 2005, the number of children living with HIV receiving lifesaving treatment has quadrupled. But still, only 28 percent of the nearly two million children in need of lifelong HIV treatment are getting it.

  10 December 2012 | The Hill

• Trial of HIV test for babies in Africa could make a big difference

  The first-of-a-kind test will deliver a diagnosis in less than an hour while mother and child are still in the clinic -- and, if all goes well, could dramatically improve the rates in which infected infants are diagnosed and treated.The test is a miniaturized, inexpensive version of the p24 HIV test and is designed specifically for use in developing countries.

  29 October 2012 | Eurekalert Inf Dis

• Northwestern team develops fast HIV test for infants in Africa

  In sub-Saharan Africa, it can take up to three months for mothers to learn whether their babies have been infected with the virus. Now researchers are about to unveil a new HIV test for infants which promises to produce a result in less than an hour at a palatable cost.

  26 October 2012 | Chicago Tribune

• Uninfected Infants May Carry Maternal HIV Antibodies Beyond 18 Months

  A significant percentage of infants born to HIV-infected mothers still have maternal HIV antibodies well beyond 18 months of age, which is the cutoff for the surveillance case definition for HIV infection currently used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  24 August 2012 | Medscape (requires free registration)

• Second Edition of UNITAID Diagnostic Technology Landscape Report Published

  The second edition of the UNITAID Diagnostic Technology Landscape is now available online. First published in June 2011, the report has proven a critical tool for those interested in understanding the pipeline for HIV point-of-care diagnostics, including global health institutions, health care providers, investors, and developers. The 2012 edition represents UNITAID’s continued effort to map the landscape of existing and pipeline products and provides updated information on progress in the development of these important technologies.

  26 June 2012 | UNITAID

• Instant Infant HIV Diagnosis to be Rolled Out in Rural Kenya

  Jesse Mtembe, a nursing officer at the Akithenesit Health Centre in Teso North, in Kenya's Western Province, cannot wait for his centre to be connected to a new software system for diagnosing HIV in infants that is being developed in the country's leading private university.

  13 June 2012 | Inter Press Service

• UNAIDS launches "Believe it. Do it." action campaign to help end new HIV infections among children by 2015

  The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) today launched a new campaign, "Believe it. Do it.", aimed at bringing attention and action to the global goal of ending new HIV infections among children by 2015 and ensuring mothers living with HIV remain healthy.

  09 May 2012 | UNAIDS

• Instant Infant HIV Diagnosis to be Rolled Out in Rural Kenya

  Jesse Mtembe, a nursing officer at the Akithenesit Health Centre in Teso North, in Kenya's Western Province, cannot wait for his centre to be connected to a new software system for diagnosing HIV in infants that is being developed in the country's leading private university.

  19 March 2012 | Inter Press Service

• TANZANIA: New centres to boost paediatric HIV care

  Just 15 percent of all prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission facilities in Tanzania are able to conduct early infant diagnosis; poorly trained health workers and inadequate infrastructure mean general hospitals are ill-equipped to handle routine identification, testing and treatment of HIV-infected children.

  15 March 2011 | IRIN Plus News

• South Africa: Students Keen to Know Their Status

  Students have shown a willingness to get tested for HIV and say that it is important for everyone to know their status so that if need be, people can start treatment earlier. This follows the launch of the 'First things first' HIV Counselling and Testing Campaign targeting first year tertiary level students around the country.

  21 February 2011 | AllAfrica

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