Ah. Klokke et Za. Berege, REDUCING THE COST OF HIV-TESTING THROUGH USE OF THE IGG ANTIBODY CAPTURED PARTICLE ADHERENCE TEST (GACPAT) IN DISTRICT HOSPITALS, Tropical and geographical medicine, 47(6), 1995, pp. 296-299
Though the World Health Organization (WHO) htrs acted to reduce the pr
ice of anti-HIV assays for developing countries, the cost of the large
-scale testing to be done may still be prohibitive to the health budge
t of these countries. GACPAT, a modified commercial particle assay, is
ten times cheaper than the WHO price of ELISAs, In this study GACPAT
was introduced in three district hospital laboratories (DHL) in Tanzan
ia, and the results compared with those on the same sera in a referenc
e laboratory (RL). Sensitivity and specificity were 92.6% and 98.7%, r
espectively at DHL, It is concluded that GACPAT is a valid, feasible a
nd cheap alternative for ELISA anti-HIV-testing also at district hospi
tal laboratory level.