Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health developed a new testing method to detect latent HIV, according to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine.
The new test is reportedly much faster, less labor-intensive and cheaper than the currently available test. The new assay was also able to identify higher levels of the virus in people on antiretroviral therapy who appear to be cured than what had been previously estimated. The presence of HIV detected by the new test was also 70-fold larger than prior assessments.
"Globally there are substantial efforts to cure people of HIV by finding ways to eradicate this latent reservoir of virus that stubbornly persists in patients, despite our best therapies," said Phalguni Gupta, PhD, professor and vice chair of Pitt Public Health's Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology and the senior author of the study. "But those efforts aren't going to progress if we don't have tests that are sensitive and practical enough to tell doctors if someone is truly cured."
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