Retrospective longitudinal analysis of low-level viremia among HIV-1 infected adults on antiretroviral therapy in Kenya.

Background: HIV low-level viremia (LLV) (51-999 copies/mL) can progress to treatment failure and increase potential for drug resistance. We analyzed retrospective longitudinal data from people living with HIV (PLHIV) on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Kenya to understand LLV prevalence and virologic outcomes.

Methods: We calculated rates of virologic suppression (≤50 copies/mL), LLV (51-999 copies/mL), virologic non-suppression (≥1000 copies/mL), and virologic failure (≥2 consecutive virologic non-suppression results) among PLHIV aged 15 years and older who received at least 24 weeks of ART during 2015-2021.

Enhancing accreditation outcomes for medical laboratories on the Strengthening Laboratory Management Toward Accreditation programme in Kenya via a rapid results initiative.

Background: Since 2010, Kenya has used SLIPTA to prepare and improve quality management systems in medical laboratories to achieve ISO 15189 accreditation. However, less than 10% of enrolled laboratories had done so in the initial seven years of SLMTA implementation.

Objective: We described Kenya's experience in accelerating medical laboratories on SLMTA to attain ISO 15189 accreditation.

HIV Viral Load Monitoring Among Patients Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy - Eight Sub-Saharan Africa Countries, 2013-2018.

One component of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) goal to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030, is that 95% of all persons receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) achieve viral suppression. Thus, testing all HIV-positive persons for viral load (number of copies of viral RNA per mL) is a global health priority (1). CDC and other U.

Assessing the effect of decentralisation of laboratory diagnosis for drug-resistant tuberculosis in Kenya.

Setting: Drug susceptibility testing (DST) is recommended in Kenya to identify multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in persons registered for tuberculosis (TB) retreatment. DST is performed at a central laboratory with a two-step growth-based process and a regional laboratory with a simultaneous molecular- and growth-based process.

Objective: To compare proportions of retreatment cases who underwent DST and turnaround times for hospitals referring to the central vs.

Using standard and institutional mentorship models to implement SLMTA in Kenya.

Background: Kenya is home to several high-performing internationally-accredited research laboratories, whilst most public sector laboratories have historically lacked functioning quality management systems. In 2010, Kenya enrolled an initial eight regional and four national laboratories into the Strengthening Laboratory Management Toward Accreditation (SLMTA) programme. To address the challenge of a lack of mentors for the regional laboratories, three were paired, or 'twinned', with nearby accredited research laboratories to provide institutional mentorship, whilst the other five received standard mentorship.

Field evaluation of Abbott Real Time HIV-1 Qualitative test for early infant diagnosis using dried blood spots samples in comparison to Roche COBAS Ampliprep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Qual test in Kenya.

Timely diagnosis and treatment of infants infected with HIV are critical for reducing infant mortality. High-throughput automated diagnostic tests like Roche COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Qual Test (Roche CAPCTM Qual) and the Abbott Real Time HIV-1 Qualitative (Abbott Qualitative) can be used to rapidly expand early infant diagnosis testing services. In this study, the performance characteristics of the Abbott Qualitative were evaluated using two hundred dried blood spots (DBS) samples (100 HIV-1 positive and 100 HIV-1 negative) collected from infants attending the antenatal facilities in Kisumu, Kenya.

Comparison of short-term and long-term protocols for stabilization and preservation of RNA and DNA of Leishmania, Trypanosoma, and Plasmodium.

Molecular tools continue to be important in the prevention and control of parasitic diseases. However, using these techniques directly in the field remains a major challenge. Therefore, the preservation of clinical samples collected from endemic field areas for later analysis remains an important preanalytical process.

A successful treatment of a Kenyan case of unresponsive cutaneous leishmaniasis with a combination of pentostam and oral allopurinol: case report.

A nine year aged male presented with facial lesions and the problem of responding to conventional treatment of leishmaniasis. Multiple injections of antimony and several topical ointments had been administered in hospital but fresh lesions erupted with potential to disfigure. Smears examined from nodular lesions confirmed presence of Leishmania amastigotes and parenteral pentostam was commenced for over eight weeks.

Accordance and concordance of PCR and NASBA followed by oligochromatography for the molecular diagnosis of Trypanosoma brucei and Leishmania.

Objective: To evaluate the repeatability and reproducibility of four simplified molecular assays for the diagnosis of Trypanosoma brucei spp. or Leishmania ssp. in a multicentre ring trial with seven participating laboratories.

Sensitivity and specificity of the Leishmania OligoC-TesT and NASBA-oligochromatography for diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in Kenya.

Objective: To estimate the sensitivity and specificity of the OligoC-TesT and nucleic acid sequence-based amplification coupled to oligochromatography (NASBA-OC) for molecular detection of Leishmania in blood from patients with confirmed visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and healthy endemic controls from Kenya.

Methods: Blood specimens of 84 patients with confirmed VL and 98 endemic healthy controls from Baringo district in Kenya were submitted to both assays.

Results: The Leishmania OligoC-TesT showed a sensitivity of 96.

Simplified molecular detection of Leishmania parasites in various clinical samples from patients with leishmaniasis.

Background: Molecular methods to detect Leishmania parasites are considered specific and sensitive, but often not applied in endemic areas of developing countries due to technical complexity. In the present study isothermal, nucleic acid sequence based amplification (NASBA) was coupled to oligochromatography (OC) to develop a simplified detection method for the diagnosis of leishmaniasis. NASBA-OC, detecting Leishmania RNA, was evaluated using clinical samples from visceral leishmaniasis patients from East Africa (n = 30) and cutaneous leishmaniasis from South America (n = 70) and appropriate control samples.