Low and stable HIV seroprevalence in pregnant women in Shaba province, Zaire.

Sentinel serosurveillance for HIV infection has been carried out in Shaba province, Zaire, among consecutive pregnant women attending antenatal clinics from 1989 to 1991. There were four surveillance sites (three urban and one semiurban), at which a total of 13 surveillance studies were made of 4,205 women. Overall, 3.

Use of a rapid test and an ELISA for HIV antibody screening of pooled serum samples in Lubumbashi, Zaire.

Pools with a size of 3 and 5 were prepared by mixing one HIV confirmed HIV-1 seropositive serum with either 2 or 4 HIV seronegative sera at the Regional HIV Laboratory in Lubumbashi, Zaire. These pools were assessed in a blind fashion by ELISA (Vironostika anti-HTLV-III microELISA system, Organon Technika). Similarly constituted pools of 3 samples were assayed by a rapid test with visual reading (HIVCHEK 1 + 2, Dupont de Nemours).

Prevention of blood-borne HIV transmission using a decentralized approach in Shaba, Zaire.

Objective: To prevent blood transfusion-acquired HIV infection with a decentralized approach to HIV screening of blood donors, using an instrument-free rapid test.

Setting: Shaba province, Zaire (496,877 km2).

Methods: The programme consisted of training health-care workers, distribution of a rapid HIV-antibody test (DuPont's HIVCHEK) for screening of all blood donations, and quality control of testing by a regional reference centre.