Medical coy gears up to launch HIV oral self-test kit

As part of measures to scale-up HIV/AIDS status awareness, Oraquick, an HIV self-test (HIVST) kit was recently evaluated by Federal Ministry of Health, FMoH, says Dr. Godwin Emmanuel, a manager at a medical device company.

Dr. Emmanuel, a manager at Mozuk Mediequip and Commodities Solutions Limited, said this evaluation was done across the six geo-political zones in line with national guidelines to assess the efficacy of the test kits for use in Nigeria.

He said the “The evaluation showed 98.4% specificity and sensitivity to detect HIV antibodies 1 & 2 among Nigerians.”

He added that the oral testing kit, Oraquick, will be launched at a report dissemination meeting by the National AIDS and STDs Control Program (NASCP) of the FMoH.

He said the report dissemination is sequel to the recent approval by the FMoH of the national ‘Operational Guidelines for the Delivery of HIV Self-Testing in Nigeria’ that outlines modalities for conducting HIV self-testing in the country.

On the importance, Dr. Emmanuel said, HIV self-test can help increase HIV testing uptake, therefore helping to capture otherwise undiagnosed HIV cases.”

This  he said speaks “to greater confidentiality and privacy, from the individual purchasing an easy-to-use, pocket friendly diagnostic kit from a designated outlet, to self-running the test in the privacy of one’s home or other desired locations, without the knowledge of anyone”.