M-Pima™ HIV1/2 VL: A Suitable Tool for HIV-1 and HIV-2 Viral Load Quantification in West Africa.

Point-of-Care for HIV viral RNA quantification seems to be a complementary strategy to the existing conventional systems. This study evaluated the performance of the m-PIMATM HIV1/2 Viral Load for the quantification of both HIV-1 and HIV-2 RNA viral load. A total of 555 HIV-1 and 90 HIV-2 samples previously tested by Abbott RealTime HIV-1 (Abbott, Chicago, USA) and Generic HIV-2 (R) Charge virale (Biocentric, France) were tested using the m-PIMATM HIV1/2 Viral Load at the HIV National Reference lab in Senegal. For HIV-1, Pearson correlation and Bland-Altman plots showed a coefficient r = 0.97 and a bias of-0.11 log10 copies/ml (95% confidence interval [CI]:-0.086 to-0.133 log10 copies/ml) for the m-PIMATM HIV1/2 Viral Load, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity at 3 log10 copies/ml (threshold of virological failure) were 93.6% (95%[CI]: 91.5% to 95.6%) and 99.1% (95%[CI]: 98.3% to 99.9%), respectively. For HIV-2, a correlation of r = 0.95 was also noted with a bias of -0.229 log10 copies/ml (95%[CI]:-0.161 to-0.297 log10 copies/ml). Sensitivity and specificity at 3 log10 copies/ml were 97.6% (95%[CI]: 94.3% to 100%) and 93.9% (95%[CI]: 88.9% to 98.8%), respectively. These results confirmed that m-PIMATM HIV1/2 VL could be a good alternative for HIV-1 and HIV-2 viral load testing in decentralized settings in Senegal.