The Need for a New Generation of HIV Diagnostics

Page e7 Despite remarkable advances in the prevention and treatment of HIV, over 35 million individuals currently live with active HIV infection and worldwide, there were nearly 2.1 million new cases of HIV in 2013.1,2 The benefits of rapid testing to determine HIV infection are well established the introduction of Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) treatment within four hours of exposure has been shown to dramatically limit both virus spread and progression to AIDS.3 Equally critical is the need to continuously monitor virus load in individuals on HAART and/or other HIV therapies. With the expansion of HAART in countries with poor access to and/or quality of health care, individual variations in HAART effectiveness may be infrequently monitored. Negative outcomes of this well-intended expansion may be that individuals on HAART assume they are either virus-free or incapable of spreading infection whereas the opposite status would have potentially tragic outcomes. Lastly, as we look to the future and the implementation of HIV vaccines, the capacity to monitor virus directly, not just the presence of antibodies to HIV, is increasingly critical.