STREAM Study Shows Point-of-Care Viral Load Testing Can Improve HIV Outcomes

The Simplifying HIV TREAtment and Monitoring (STREAM) study, led by Global Health professor Paul Drain and recently published in The Lancet HIV, found that point-of-care HIV viral load monitoring and task shifting significantly improved viral suppression and retention in HIV care, as compared to standard laboratory-based HIV viral load testing. This study was the first randomized controlled trial to compare rapid point-of-care HIV viral load testing against standard of care lab-based HIV viral load testing, which usually takes several weeks to return results to patients.

Point-of-Care HIV Viral Load Testing Combined with Task Shifting to Improve Treatment Outcomes (The Lancet - Includes Paul Drain, Ruanne Barnabas, and Connie Celum)

Point-of-care HIV viral load testing combined with task shifting can improve viral suppression and retention in care by up to 14% and enable rapid care decisions, suggest results of a clinical trial led by the University of Washington and the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA).