title: Should South Africa be performing nucleic acid testing on HIV enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-negative samples?
abstract: The frequency of acute HIV infection (AHI) among HIV-1 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-negative samples received from general hospital patient admissions was assessed. Of 3,005 samples pooled for nucleic acid testing, a prevalence of 0.13% was found. Pooled nucleic acid testing may be feasible for low-cost identification of AHI in high-prevalence settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology, School of Pathology, University of Witwatersrand, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa.
authors.forename: Natasha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gous
authors.forename: Lesley
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Perovic
authors.forename: Francios
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Venter
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Stevens
mesh_terms: D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000097:blood*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013019:South Africa / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D015483:HIV Antibodies; D012367:RNA, Viral