Tropical Laboratory Initiative: An innovative model for laboratory medicine in rural areas.

Background: Communities in rural, low-resource settings often lack access to reliable diagnostics. This leads to missed and misdiagnosed cases of disease and contributes to morbidity and mortality.

Objective: This paper describes a model for providing local laboratory services to rural areas of Ghana, and provides suggestions on how it could be adapted and expanded to serve populations in a range of rural communities.

Performance of the BD-FACS Presto for CD4 count and hemoglobin measurement in a district hospital and rural laboratory in Ghana.

Introduction: In Ghana, initiation of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) is recommended for all patients with an HIV diagnosis, regardless of CD4+ T-cell count. However, measurement of CD4 count remains an important metric for identifying patients with advanced HIV disease, and assessing a person's overall immune status, which informs the decision to offer opportunistic infection screening and prophylaxis. Access to CD4+ T cell count in rural health facilities remains a major challenge in Ghana and other resource-limited settings.