Category Archives: Testing
Preventive care in the emergency department: Should emergency departments conduct routine HIV screening? A systematic review
OBJECTIVE: To perform a systematic review of the emergency medicine literature to assess the appropriateness of offering routine HIV screening to patients in the emergency department (ED). METHODS: The systematic...
Retention in HIV care between testing and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review
BACKGROUND: Improving the outcomes of HIV/AIDS treatment programs in resource-limited settings requires successful linkage of patients testing positive for HIV to pre-antiretroviral therapy (ART) care and retention in pre-ART care...
Risk of window period hepatitis-C infection in high infectious risk donors: Systematic review and meta-analysis
The OPTN classifies high infectious risk donors (HRDs) based on criteria originally intended to identify people at risk for HIV infection. These donors are sometimes referred to as ‘CDC high...
Priority interventions to reduce HIV transmission in sex work settings in sub-Saharan Africa and delivery of these services
INTRODUCTION: Virtually no African country provides HIV prevention services in sex work settings with an adequate scale and intensity. Uncertainty remains about the optimal set of interventions and mode of...
Determinants of male involvement in maternal and child health services in sub-Saharan Africa: A review
INTRODUCTION: Male participation is a crucial component in the optimization of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) services. This is especially so where prevention strategies to decrease Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT) of...
The utility of voluntary counselling and testing data as a source of information on HIV prevalence: A systematic review
We explored the utility of routine HIV testing data from clinical services for estimating HIV prevalence. A systematic review identified 28 eligible publications, covering concentrated epidemics (16 of 28) and...
Screening for HIV: Systematic review to update the 2005 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation
BACKGROUND: A 2005 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) review found good evidence that HIV screening is accurate and that antiretroviral therapy (ART) for immunologically advanced disease is associated with...
Cost-effectiveness of antenatal HIV-testing: Reviewing its pharmaceutical and methodological aspects
This paper reviews the pharmacoeconomic aspects of antenatal testing for HIV. HIV is a retrovirus which is transmitted among humans through sexual contact, infected blood or blood products (needle sharing...
Cost-effectiveness of counseling and testing to prevent sexual transmission of HIV in the United States
In this paper we review the cost-effectiveness of HIV counseling and testing in various settings and populations in preventing the sexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus, and we discuss how...
Head-to-head comparison of accuracy of a rapid point-of-care HIV test with oral versus whole-blood specimens: A systematic review and meta-analysis
BACKGROUND: The focus on prevention strategies aimed at curbing the HIV epidemic is growing, and therefore screening for HIV has again taken centre stage. Our aim was to establish whether...