United Nations Programme on HIV AIDS or UNAIDS and the African Society for Laboratory Medicine or ASLM with global partners planned to launch the Diagnostics Access Initiative to improve laboratory capacity for effective high quality treatment of all people living with the virus.
In a statement on Wednesday in Melbourne, Australia, World Health Organization or WHO, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, UNICEF, US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and ASLM said the Initiative focuses to ensure that at least 90 percent of all people living with HIV know their status to monitor levels of the virus in their bodies.
UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé said they made it simpler so that around 19 million of the 35 million people living with HIV who do not know their status, test and start lifesaving treatment.
ASLM Chief Executive Officer Dr Tsehaynesh Messele said the Initiative focuses urgent attention on the importance of developing new, affordable viral load, infant diagnosis technologies and effectively using their laboratory capacity.
He said they would advocate for greater funding for laboratory services, development of new analytic tools and strengthen efforts to ensure that diagnostic services are of the highest quality and well-coordinated to close access gaps.
US Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Deborah Birx said to achieve control of the HIV AIDS, it was essential that all people have access to high-quality laboratory services for accurate diagnosis and treatment.
She added that to ensure early diagnosis of HIV, laboratory procedures need to be simplified and multiple testing tools and strategies made available.
WHO Assistant Director-General Hiroki Nakatani said it was essential that people know whether they have HIV infection and those taking drugs know whether their medicines are controlling the virus.