FG Okays New Test Kit For HIV

The federal government has approved the inclusion of Wondfo HIV I and II rapid test kits for use in Nigeria, NAN reports.

Coordinator, National AIDS/STI Control Programme (NASCP), Akudo Ikpeazu, made the announcement while presenting the evaluation report on the kit in Abuja on Tuesday.

The Wondfo rapid test kit could be used as a confirmatory test due to its high specification of 99.4 per cent, the AIDS body said.

Ikpeazu recalled that in 2019, the Federal Ministry of Health approved the conduct of the laboratory performance evaluation of Wondfo HIV I and II rapid test kit.

She disclosed that evaluation was conducted at a Diagnostic Laboratory, Lagos.

“The rapid test kit has an accuracy of 99.4 per cent with positive and negative predictive values of the kit to the Gold Standard as 99.3 per cent and 99.5 per cent respectively”, Ikpeazu noted.

The official assured that the results met the requirements for the kit to be included in the first line screening test of the HIV testing algorithm in Nigeria.

The coordinator confirmed that the National HIV testing algorithms were developed from rounds of evaluation conducted with antibody-based kits.