Nigerians will soon have more access to HIV self-test kits, which
will allow them know their HIV status from the comfort of their homes,
the minister of health, Isaac Adewole, has said.
The minister said this while receiving the Amethyst HIV 1 and 2
self-test kits, and 10 ‘Anti-body based HIV rapid Test Kits 2016
evaluation reports’ at the ministry of health secretariat in Abuja on
Tuesday.
The minister said the government is trying to encourage more people
to get tested and know their HIV status so as to reduce the prevalence
rate in the country.
The report he received is the laboratory performance evaluation of the HIV rapid test kits.
Mr. Adewole said it is important to get as much people as possible
tested and to know their status as HIV is no longer a death sentence,
since there was the availability of ‘potent anti-retrovals.’
“HIV is now regarded as a chronic aliment just like TB and diabetes.
No one should be ashamed (of test) and with medication we believe that
when 80 per cent of HIV patients are on treatment, we can suppress the
transmission of HIV”, he said.
Eight new self-test kits out of 10 that were subjected to laboratory evaluation scaled through sensitive and specificity test.
These eight are: Unigold, Determine and HIV Quick check, (which are
recommended as first line kits), Diaquick, First Response, Care start,
HIV status and Multisure, (for second line confirmation).
Mr. Adewole explained that at least 5.9 million Nigerians are
infected with HIV adding that, ”globally there is an estimate of 14
million people, who are HIV positive and do not know their status.”
He said to be able to determine their status they need to have access
to a good test kit which will give them the needed privacy and
confidentiality.
“That is the new advancement that we are trying to push in the
medical world, where you can test yourself without getting to the
hospital, where you are able to do your blood test, test your blood
sugar, check your blood pressure, test if you have genital infection, do
mouth test for DNA etc.
“Medical world is becoming a situation whereby you are now n control
of those tests and don’t have to go the facility because many people
are too busy and that is the excuse many give for not going for test.
“This is a situation where you can sit in the comfort of your house
and pierce yourself and take a self-test which gives confidence that it
will surely be accurate”, he said.
Mr. Adewole explained that this method takes away influences of
service providers, removes bias and added that there is no
stigmatisation attached.
“What is important is that we want to ensure that 90 per cent of
Nigerians, who are not yet tested, get tested and the 90 per cent of
those positive should be placed on anti- retroviral immediately, and 90
per cent of those on treatment are virally suppressed so that the level
of virus in the system will go down and they will not be able to infect
their partners or any others person.”
The head of the evaluation team, Mananson Rabianu, said the main
reason for the evaluation is to enable Nigerians have options to choose
in standard oral test kits for HIV tests.
Mr. Rabianu said the procedure used in the evaluation of the oral test kits were standard, stringent and in-depth.
”We also followed the WHO guidelines on kit testing before arriving
at a result. 1,500 people were used for the evaluation from the six
geopolitical zones in the country and the oral kit recommended gave a
sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 93.9 per cent, 92. 8 percent
and 93.3 per cent respectively”, he explained.
“HIV test in Nigeria is commonly done using the ELISA for screening
and Western Blot for confirmation. But this new addition will change
that.”
Mr. Rabianu also said the kits are not for diagnostic use and that no
matter the result, the person should still go to the hospital for
confirmation.
Samuel Ohiri, the CEO, HI-TECH Diagnostics Ltd, manufacturers of the
HIV test kits, commended the government on its efforts to make HIV test
kits available to many Nigerians and also break the monopoly around the
business to ”allow new players.”
He urged the government to implement the result of the report so as
to allow the manufacturers have opportunities to market their products
in the country.