Global company donates HIV/Syphilis test kits to OAFLA
A global diagnostic device and service provider company, ALERE Incorporated, has donated 12,000 duo HIV and syphilis test kits to the Ghana Chapter of the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA).
The rapid diagnostic test kits are used for the simultaneous test of HIV and syphilis and gives results in 20 minutes.
The ALERE Social Responsibility Ambassador for Africa, Ms Zeina Henaine, who presented the items, commended the First Lady for her hard work and dedication in ensuring the welfare of women and children in less-privileged areas.
Dual screening
Presenting the test kits Ms Henaine 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 the recognition that more than one million women and families had to face the trauma of repeated pregnancy loss, stillbirth or a child infected with HIV and syphilis at birth.
Ms Henaine said HIV and syphilis were the major public health problems affecting women and their newborn infants in the world, and 90 per cent HIV infections to children were from mother to child during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding.
She said although syphilis was easily curable with penicillin there were usually no tests carried out for pregnant women with syphilis.
According to her, when detected, treatment in the early stage of pregnancy could prevent congenital syphilis, stillbirth or premature births.
Single kit
In a speech read on her behalf by the Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr Angela El-Adas, the First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, said the incorporation of both HIV and syphilis tests in a single kit had many advantages.
Using a dual screening test for HIV and syphilis would also reduce testing duplications, labour time, logistics fee, storage space and operating costs partly because it did not require electricity or other equipment, she said.
Mrs Mahama said like many other members of OAFLA, Ghana had benefitted first-hand from those kits which were used “during our elimination of mother-to-child transmission (eMTCT) outreaches conducted throughout the country”.
“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.
She expressed her appreciation to ALERE for providing the innovative kits, and appealed to them to increase the allocation of the kits to support its first 90 campaign to test six million people over the next 12 months.
