Finger-prick blood samples can be used interchangeably with venous samples for CD4 cell counting indicating their potential for use in CD4 rapid tests.

The objective of this study was to investigate the utility of finger-prick blood samples for CD4 cell counting. We estimated agreement between CD4 cell counts in paired finger-prick and venous samples from 110 HIV-infected adults from Malawi. Bias was 6.6 cells/microl (limits of agreement -50.7 and 63.7 cells/microl) for absolute counts and 0.71% (limits of agreement -2.07 and 3.48%) for %CD4/lymphocyte suggesting that finger-prick blood samples can be used interchangeably with venous samples for CD4 cell counting.