Role of dual HIV/syphilis test kits in expanding syphilis screening

Screening pregnant women for HIV and syphilis is a critical component of national programming to achieve elimination of mother to child transmission (EMTCT) for the two diseases. Many countries have well-resourced programmes for HIV screening in pregnant women and key populations (men who have sex with men and sex workers), but screening for syphilis in these same risk groups is seldom centralised and often falls within the responsibilities but outside the priorities of reproductive health, antenatal care and sexually transmitted infection (STI) control programmes. The tragedy of babies avoiding HIV and dying of syphilis and the lack of progress in Africa in congenital syphilis elimination despite tremendous successes in EMTCT for HIV has once again reminded us of the need to re-examine this situation.1 2 In this issue, Obure et al describes a comparative analysis of costs of single versus dual rapid diagnostic tests for...
Source: Sexually Transmitted Infections - Category: Sexual Medicine Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research