Living Affected in New Frontiers

Business Card-Sized Chip Diagnoses HIV and T-Cell Counts

 

You're looking what could become the next frontier in global health and medicine across the developing world: A credit-card sized "microfluidic" biochip that scans blood to detect HIV and accurate T-cell counts.

 

The test takes less than 20 minutes and costs about ten dollars, according to new research from scientists at the University of Illinois and Daktari Diagnostics.

The chip is designed to work in a battery-powered handheld device that would “deliver simple HIV diagnostics to patients anywhere in the world, regardless of geography or socioeconomic status,” the researchers say in the paper.

The chip, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois and Daktari Diagnostics, is enclosed in a small chamber. Because cells block electric current, passing a current through a tiny microfluidic pore causes the cells to essentially announce their size and shape. That’s enough to identify the cell by type, so the test can count CD4 and CD8 cells, types of T cells that indicate how healthy the patient’s immune system is.

Once in wide use, the reader would cost less than $1,000 and each test would run less than $10, according to project lead Rashid Bashir.

The microfluidic chip could become a tremendous asset in frontier medicine across Sub Saharan Africa. That region is home to about 70 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS, according to AVERT. Many areas are without electrical power, telephone service, adequate roads, hospitals or clinics ... which severely impacts conventional testing and treatment strategies.

 

Criminalization Laws Fuel Stigma Against People Living with HIV

Always on the grind. My latest article is the first in a series for the Black AIDS Institute on the impact of stigma on HIV prevention and treatment: "Criminalization Laws Fuel Stigma Against People Living with HIV/AIDS."

 

With 32 states and two territories criminalizing exposure to and/or transmission of HIV, the United States leads the world with "thousands of prosecutions," according to the United Nations-backed Global Commission on HIV and the Law. Some states penalize people for having sex without revealing their serostatus—regardless of whether a condom was used, the person's viral load was undetectable or if the virus was transmitted.

 

"There is already a huge stigma associated with being HIV positive—and these laws do not encourage people to get tested and seek treatment," says Robert Suttle, assistant director of the Sero Project, the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization fighting HIV criminalization laws nationwide.
Suttle discovered that he was HIV positive while trying to enlist in the Air Force. Later, following the end of a contentious relationship, a former partner filed charges that Suttle never revealed his serostatus—which Suttle says is not true. He was sentenced to six months in prison under the Louisiana law that criminalizes HIV exposure and subsequently was required to register as a sex offender. 

"One of my concerns around the many HIV-criminalization laws is around interpretation," saysKimberly A. Parker, Ph.D., assistant professor of health studies at Texas Woman's University. "Were they on treatment? Did they use condoms? Did they actually disclose? The implication is that whatever you do, you will be criminalized." 

"Criminalization also has a significant impact on a person's ability to seek treatment," says Suttle. "Many people are not aware that they are HIV positive—and that is especially true among Black people and Black gay men." Notably, African Americans make up some 56 percent of "late testers" diagnosed with AIDS within one year of learning they have HIV. "Sometimes we could be prosecuted for something that we didn't know we had," Suttle adds.

Read the full report HERE.