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A new test developed by CDC could
help researchers assess whether fewer people are becoming newly infected with
HIV, thus whether a prevention program is working. At the 19th International
AIDS Conference in Washington, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen
Sebelius called the Limiting Antigen Avidity Enzyme Immunoassay (LAAEI) “a
major development that will help us better evaluate and improve our prevention
efforts.”
LAAEI works by measuring how tightly
an HIV antibody has bound to the HIV protein, said Dr. Bharat Parekh,
laboratory director at CDC’s Center for Global Health (CGH), where the test was
developed. He explained that the binding is weak when a person initially is
infected but strengthens over time. LAAEI works on any HIV strain.
CDC trialed the test in Swaziland
late last year, using both LAAEI and a traditional method of measuring
incidence ahead of the implementation of a large-scale male circumcision program
to prevent HIV. LAAEI analyzed blood samples from 6,000 people who had already
tested HIV-positive to see how many had been recently infected. The traditional
method, a longitudinal cohort estimate, involved analyzing blood samples from
12,000 HIV-negative males and females, and then retesting them six months later
to see if any became infected.
LAAEI showed HIV incidence stood at
2.6 percent, while the longitudinal study result was 2.4 percent. However,
LAAEI took 10 days and cost thousands of dollars, while the traditional method
took two rounds of sampling six months apart and cost millions of dollars, said
Yen Duong, a microbiologist with CGH’s HIV lab.
LAAEI, which is commercially
available from Sedia Biosciences, now is being used in countries participating
in the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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