NEW HIV TEST KIT APPROVED-FG,
The Federal Government has approved the inclusion of Wondfo HIV I and II rapid test kits for use to stem the spread of the scourge in the country.

The National Coordinator, National AIDS/STI Control Programme (NASCP) Dr Akudo Ikpeazu, made the this known while presenting the evaluation report on the kit, on Tuesday in Abuja.

“The Wondfo rapid test kit could be used as a confirmatory test because of its high specification of 99.4 per cent,” she said.

The coordinator said that in 2019, the Federal Ministry of Health( FMOH) approved the conduct of the laboratory performance evaluation of Wondfo HIV I and II rapid test kit.

“The result of the evaluation which was conducted at the reference testing laboratory Public Health in Vitro Diagnostic Laboratory, Lagos” showed that Wondfo rapid test kit sensitivity, was 99.5 per cent and its specificity was 99.4 per cent.

“The rapid test kit has an accuracy of 99.4 per cent with positive and negative predictive values of the kit to the Gold Standard as 99.3 per cent and 99.5 per cent respectively.

“These results met the requirements for the kit to be included in the first-line screening test of the HIV testing algorithm in Nigeria,” she explained.

She disclosed that Nigeria had conducted some rounds of evaluation of HIV rapid test kits, using the World Health Organisation(WHO) guidelines for appropriate evaluation of HIV testing technologies in Africa, where three phases of the evaluation were recommended.

She noted that these phases were, laboratory-based, field-based and continuous monitoring of the performance of the algorithm.

Ikpeazu said that the National HIV testing algorithms were developed from these rounds of the evaluation conducted and all the test kits were antibody-based kits.

“HIV testing is the fulcrum of any HIV programme as it establishes t
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