Ending the HIV Epidemic Through Point-of-Care Technologies (EHPOC)

This study proposes to investigate the performance of existing and new technologies for HIV diagnosis, one of the key strategies for Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. Current, Standard-of-Care (SOC) diagnostic techniques have extended turn-around-times (TATs) that result in loss of patients to follow up due to delays in laboratory procedures. In this scenario, patients that are at a high-risk for HIV have the potential to continue transmission, making it difficult to end the epidemic. Rapid, Point-of-Care (POC) HIV viral load (VL) testing alleviates this problem by reducing TATs that allow providers to test for HIV infection and link patients to antiretroviral therapy (ART) or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) during the same clinical visit, and subsequently, suppress VL, prevent HIV infection, and reduce its transmission among high-risk populations. The study proposes that evaluating the performance of new and existing POC technologies is needed to provide updated information to HIV test providers operating in different populations and settings and improve linkage to HIV treatment and prevention services. The study hypothesizes that: A. Determining the performance characteristics of HIV POC tests will inform optimal testing strategies in different populations and settings B. The use of HIV RNA POC tests will improve linkage to HIV treatment and prevention services: i. Improve early diagnosis of HIV ii. Reduce the time to ART initiation iii. Facilitate timely and appropriate referral for prevention services