Description:
This CDC-developed technology entails a nucleic acid-based HIV-2 in vitro diagnostic assay that is well-suited for use in mobile testing units/vehicles or resource-limited settings, for example, many areas of West Africa. Because HIV-2 requires unique treatment regimens, accurate, early diagnosis is crucial for effective care and directing treatment. Recently, new HIV testing recommendations have been proposed for laboratory settings, which include the use of a HIV-1/HIV-2 discriminatory assay. The use of a discriminatory assay will aid clinicians in the detection of HIV-2 infection; however, current HIV screening tests are antibody-based and frequently yield a false-negative result if a patient is tested during early infection, prior to seroconversion.
In this technology, RT-LAMP (Reverse Transcription-Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification) provides a rapid, portable, easy to perform assay that can be used for early-stage HIV confirmation, bypassing the risk of false-negative results. The HIV-2 RT-LAMP assay can detect both HIV-2 RNA and DNA in the same reaction, and greatly narrows the window from infection to detection through observation of peak levels of virus replication that are a characteristic of early infection. Further, the assay as developed can also detect sequences from both circulating HIV-2 groups, A and B. This assay brings the potential for viral nucleic acid-based HIV diagnosis to millions of people living in low-resource settings, and may be quite useful for mobilized HIV/AIDS testing and control units operating around the world.