Bringing Real-Time Geospatial Precision to HIV Surveillance Through Smartphones: Feasibility Study.

Background: Precise measurements of HIV incidences at community level can help mount a more effective public health response, but the most reliable methods currently require labor-intensive population surveys. Novel mobile phone technologies are being tested for adherence to medical appointments and antiretroviral therapy, but using them to track HIV test results with automatically generated geospatial coordinates has not been widely tested.

Objective: We customized a portable reader for interpreting the results of HIV lateral flow tests and developed a mobile phone app to track HIV test results in urban and rural locations in Rwanda.