posted
I will write more when I can, but this was such exciting news, I had to share it right away -- there is now a 20-minute blood test available to check for infection with HIV. The lag in time between exposure and positivity is the same, but the sensitivity is ~99.7% and specificity approaches 100%.
Wow.
Theca, is this being offered out your way? Anyone else have more info?
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
There are a lot of reasons why this is good news, but I'm especially overjoyed because we can reduce the perinatal transmission of HIV (from mother to child at time of childbirth) by about 70%. Given that we know the HIV status of pregnant women in Wisconsin only about half the time at delivery, this is awesome. Now we can save the babies, at least a good deal of the time.
posted
Nope, I hadn't heard about it out here yet! That's really great news. I know ERs have been particularly frustrated about HIV testing. Someone comes in ill, gets tested, and goes home...2 days later the HIV test comes back, but either the person doesn't have a pcp and noone follows up on the result, OR the person gave wrong name/wrong address so as to not get charged for the visit. Then the diagnosis of HIV gets delayed even longer.
So this is great news.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Wow, that's fantastic news! I can't wait to hear more about it! Post links when you have time.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
We have something at our hospital called Miread (not sure if that's the correct spelling) - all mothers coming in to give birth whose HIV status is unknown (ie. they had no prenatal care) are asked to take this rapid HIV test. All mothers suspected of being HIV+ or known to be HIV+ get AZT via during the time of delivery, and the babies are started on oral AZT elixir soon after birth. This dramatically improves the baby's chances of being HIV negative.
Mothers in the Miread studies are given counseling and follow-up studies to confirm HIV status.
**Ela**
[ December 18, 2003, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Ela ]
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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