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HIV testing brings 'no benefits' Africa HIV city care questioned
(about 3 hours later)
Scientists say the largest HIV/Aids clinical trial ever done in Africa should make it easier and cheaper to get life-saving medicines to villages. More HIV/Aids patients in Africa could be treated if funds were switched from expensive laboratory testing to local care in villages, research suggests.
The results of the Dart clinical trial are to be announced at an international conference in South Africa. Results from a six-year clinical trial of 3,500 people showed that lab tests of how the medicine is working and side-effects do little to prolong life.
They show that expensive routine lab tests, part of normal treatment, have only a small benefit because they do little to extend survival rates. Money saved would enable a third more people to be treated, one doctor said.
Without the testing, patients would not need to travel to clinics in cities. In the West, laboratory tests are routinely carried out. There is still no cure for HIV/Aids.
The tests are very hard to carry out in most of Africa, the research suggests. But anti-retroviral drugs can stop the disease from developing.
Despite promises of universal treatment for HIV/Aids, only a third of the six million Africans who need treatment are getting it and there are concerns that money for Aids programmes is running short. 'Marginal benefits'
There is still no cure for HIV/Aids, but anti-retroviral drugs can stop the disease from developing. Scientists in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Britain followed almost 3,500 patients over six years for the study, known as Dart.
The difficulty for rural Africa is that normal Aids treatment requires patients to undergo regular laboratory tests to check for side-effects and make sure the medicines are working. Dr Peter Mugyenyi said more than six million people in Africa required care, but only 2.2 million were currently getting it.
These test are expensive and require sophisticated laboratories that are often only available in cities - many hours' drive away from the villages where people live. The laboratory tests are very hard to carry out in most of Africa, the research suggests.
Three countries We now understand that the intensive laboratory tests which are routinely done in the West only bring marginal benefits Dr Peter Mugyenyi
Now the results of Africa's largest ever HIV/Aids clinical trial, called the Dart trial, show the regular tests which patients undergo have either no benefit or very little benefit. The difficulty for rural Africa is that the regular laboratory tests are expensive and require sophisticated laboratories that are often only available in cities - many hours' drive away from the villages where people live.
Scientists in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Britain followed almost 3,500 patients over six years. The trial results show the regular tests have either no benefit or very little benefit to survival rates.
If regular laboratory tests are not needed, doctors say it will be much easier and cheaper to give treatment in village clinics - rather than making patients travel to centres with laboratories. If regular laboratory tests are not needed, doctors say it will be much easier and cheaper to give treatment in village clinics - rather than making patients travel to cities, where most treatment in Africa is concentrated.
Practitioners say with trained healthcare workers they can provide close supervision and support, and give HIV treatment to many more patients close to where they live.Practitioners say with trained healthcare workers they can provide close supervision and support, and give HIV treatment to many more patients close to where they live.
And for many in rural Africa this is the only way of getting treatment for a disease that has spread rapidly across the continent. Dr Mugyenyi told the BBC Network Africa: "I would describe [this study] as a breakthrough, because we now understand that the intensive laboratory tests which are routinely done in the West only bring marginal benefits.
"We could actually do nearly as well by very good clinical monitoring of patients, making sure that trained healthcare providers look at their symptoms and signs and determine whether treatment needs to be changed or whether they need to have any modification in their care and treatment."
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