Assessment of the Diagnostic Performance of HIV Rapid Test Kits in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Rapid diagnostic test kits are a crucial component of HIV diagnosis in resource limited settings. HIV RDTs are recommended because they are less expensive, require little expertise, require little sample volume and generate results in less than 20 minutes. The WHO, CDC, and UNAIDS recommend countries to undertake pre and post market evaluations of HIV RDTs used for HIV testing in that particular country. Little is known about post market evaluations of test used in Ghana. Most of these test kits are used as single test in HIV prevention and control programmes. To strengthen HIV screening in Ghana, a laboratory-based cross sectional analytic study was conducted using 200 HIV positive and HIV negative banked samples from the National Public Health Reference Laboratory of The Ghana Health Service at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. The sensitivity of the First Response, Wondfo, Healgen, Advance Quality (Intec) and Fastep  test kits were 99.0% each. Advance Quality (Intec) demonstrated a sensitivity of 97%. The specificity of the First Response, Wondfo, Healgen, Advance Quality (Intec) and Fastep test kits were 92.0%, 95.0%, 98.0%, 99.0% and 95.0% respectively. The study results show that the test kits evaluated are good for screening purposes.