Category Archives: Testing
Telephone consultation for improving health of people living with or at risk of HIV: A systematic review
BACKGROUND: Low cost, effective interventions are needed to deal with the major global burden of HIV/AIDS. Telephone consultation offers the potential to improve health of people living with HIV/AIDS cost-effectively...
Association between regulated upon activation, normal T cells expressed and secreted (RANTES) -28C/G polymorphism and susceptibility to HIV-1 infection: A meta-analysis
BACKGROUND: Many studies have investigated the distributions of RANTES genotypes between HIV-1 infected patients and uninfected individuals. However, no definite results have been put forward about whether the RANTES -28C/G...
Strategies for integrating primary health services in low- and middle-income countries at the point of delivery
BACKGROUND: In some low- and middle-income countries, separate vertical programmes deliver specific life-saving interventions but can fragment services. Strategies to integrate services aim to bring together inputs, organisation, and delivery...
Accuracy of serological assays for detection of recent infection with HIV and estimation of population incidence: A systematic review
We systematically reviewed the accuracy of serological tests for recent infections with HIV that have become widely used for measuring population patterns incidence of HIV. Across 13 different assays, sensitivity...
Uptake of home-based voluntary HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis
INTRODUCTION: Improving access to HIV testing is a key priority in scaling up HIV treatment and prevention services. Home-based voluntary counselling and testing (HBT) as an approach to delivering wide-scale...
Circulating endothelial progenitor cells in HIV infection: A systematic review
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals have a cardiovascular disease risk that is almost thrice than that of their HIV-uninfected counterparts. Given the critical role of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in...
Experiences integrating delivery of maternal and child health services with childhood immunization programs: Systematic review update
BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund promote integration of maternal and child health (MCH) and immunization services as a strategy to strengthen immunization programs. We...
Incident HIV during pregnancy and postpartum and risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission: A systematic review and meta-analysis
BACKGROUND: Women may have persistent risk of HIV acquisition during pregnancy and postpartum. Estimating risk of HIV during these periods is important to inform optimal prevention approaches. We performed a...
The impact of HIV treatment as prevention in the presence of other prevention strategies: Lessons learned from a review of mathematical models set in resource-rich countries
OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the potential prevention benefits of HIV treatment as prevention (TasP) in resource-rich countries and examine the potential interactions between TasP and other prevention strategies by...
Economic evaluation, human immunodeficiency virus infection and screening: A review and critical appraisal of economic studies
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to review, systematically and critically, evidence used to derive estimates of cost-effectiveness of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening. METHODS: A systematic review was...
