KIU, Western Campus – The Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB) last week conducted a training on advanced HIV disease and Visitec rapid CD4+ point of care testing kits in the Pathology and Diagnostic Department of KIU Teaching Hospital.

The training was an initiative of the Ministry of Health with support from UPMB to introduce new point of care CD4+ testing kits that could be of help to HIV patients’ management. 

These kits are important because most patients who need to be initiated into Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) require the estimation of CD4+ cells especially, new patients with Advanced HIV Disease (AHD) and patients returning for drugs.
The training targeted the medical laboratory professionals, medical doctors, counsellors and other medical practitioners.

A presentation was given by Doctor Richard Muhangi, the president of UPMB on advanced HIV disease, required investigations done for people living with HIV (PLHV) and children living with HIV(CLHIV). He mentioned some important investigations such as TB, CSF/ Serum CRAg, Urine LAM and CD4+ cells count.

Following the presentation, a theoretical demonstration of the Visitec RDT kits for CD4+ semi-quantitative estimation was introduced. 

The theoretical demonstration which was pictorial in nature was followed by a practical demonstration using the Visitec CD4+ RDT kits. The practical demonstration was led by Justine Nyesigamukama a medical laboratory technician. 

The practical demonstration was supervised by a medical laboratory specialist working with UPMB. The facilitators of the training appreciated the cooperation given to them by the management of KIU Teaching Hospital and Pathology and Diagnostics Department for making the training a success.

After the training, a good number of Visitec CD4+ RDT kits were donated to the facility to kickstart the testing of patients that may need CD4+ cell count before initiation into ART.

Photo: KIU Teaching Hospital