New Low Cost HIV Test Is Also Cheap
The process of determining whether a patient is suffering from the HIV / AIDS virus is certainly not cheap. In order to diagnose and subsequently monitor this condition medical staff must count two types of cells, and this currently involves very expensive equipment and several staff, which clearly presents problems for the third world, however finally the long awaited breakthrough could have arrived.
The new test, hail as a ‘lab on a chip’ looks set to revolutionize the way HIV testing can be carried out, and the low cost element means that this is the perfect solution for health care workers desperately trying to make progress in resource poor areas. Clearly even for the wealthier areas of the world, saving money on testing is going to be appealing too,so this new device has global appeal.
It works on a similar basis to the disposable general blood test we introduced some months back, but specifically targets the cells that can show the HIV virus, T cells. Basically antibodies are placed on the slide to create the test, as it is known that the T cells will bind to those antibodies if the virus is present. The cell count can then be done up to 12 times faster than current testing methods and all at a fraction of the cost. Developing scientist Professor Alexander Revzin and his team at UCLA believe that this test will soon be able to be released to the global medical profession.
