Beyond simple pooling for HIV screening.
We discuss some theoretical features underlying the successful uses of pooling in testing HIV seroprevalence. In particular it is shown that there is a scaling relation for the distribution of positive sera among the pools. A multi-stage pooling method consisting of repeatedly halving the positive pools is proposed. Concentrating on the number of tests required for screening all positive individuals the method is shown to be highly efficient in low prevalence situations.
Gwa
L H
LH
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.
Hsieh
C C
CC
Ko
Y C
YC
Lan
S J
SJ
D001699:Biometry; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015528:HIV Seroprevalence; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data