The SD
HIV/Syphilis duo is a rapid diagnostic test kit for the simultaneous
prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and syphilis results in 20
minutes.
Zeina
Henaine, ALERE Social Responsibility Ambassador for Africa who presented the
items commended the First Lady for her hard work and dedication in ensuring the
welfare of women and children in less privilege areas.
At a ceremony in Accra to present the kits Madam Zeina said using a dual
screening test for HIV and syphilis would permit an efficient extension of
maternal care services and support health capacity.
She said the presentation formed part of a
pledge made by the ALERE group to members of the OAFLA last year in New York
following recognition that more than one million women and families had to face
the trauma of repeated pregnancy loss, stillbirth or child born infected with
and suffering from HIV and syphilis.
She
explained that apart from their role as OAFLA members the First Ladies had
their individual projects which they executed in their respective countries,
hence the need to support their efforts.
Ms Henaine
said HIV and syphilis are the major public health problem affecting women and
their newborn infants in the world, and 90 per cent HIV infections to children
were from mother-to -child transmission during pregnancy, delivery and
breastfeeding.
She said
pregnant women infected with syphilis might transmit to their unborn child and
although it syphilis is easily curable with penicillin, unlike HIV which were
routinely tested in pregnant women, there were usually no tests carried out for
syphilis pregnant women.
According to
her, when detected, treatment in the early stage of pregnancy could prevent
congenial syphilis, stillbirth or premature births.
In a speech
read on her behalf by Dr Angela El-Adas, Director General of the Ghana AIDS
Commission, the First Lady Dr Lordina Mahama said the incorporation of both HIV and syphilis
tests in a single kit had many advantages.
It would save
the use of needles and blood volume, eliminating the need for laboratory
personnel or infrastructure, as well as decreased time to results, and overall
it lowered the cost of testing.
She said
using a dual screening test for HIV and syphilis would also reduce testing
duplications, labor time, logistics fee, storage space and operating costs
partly because it did not require electricity or other equipment.
She said the
Standard Diagnostics (SD) HIV/syphilis duo test kits were indeed one of a kind
as they could detect HIV and Syphilis with the same specimen using a single
device.
Mrs Mahama
said like many other members of OAFLA, Ghana had benefitted first hand from
those kits which were for use “during our the elimination of Mother-to-Child
Transmission (eMTCT) outreaches conducted throughout the country”.
The
elimination of mother-to-child transmission outreaches was aimed at bringing
services to the communities using an integrated health approach.
“With the
donation from Alere, we can now move from two different kits for HIV/Syphilis
to a single test kit. Our clients will access HIV and syphilis testing services
at a single point instead of moving from one source point to another”, she said
According to
the First Lady it had taken a lot of time to receive Food and Drugs Authority
(FDA) approval for those test kits, and it had been worth every effort put in
by the Ministry of Health and Alere since the delivery of the SD HIV/syphilis
duo kits by Alere to the OAFLA Ghana Chapter in November 2015.
She expressed
her appreciation to Alere for providing innovative kits, and appealed to them
to increase the allocation of the SD HIV/syphilis kits initially delivered to
Ghana to support its first 90 campaign to test 6 million people over the next
12 months.
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