(Image: Map of Africa coloured according to the percentage of the Adult (ages 15-49) population with HIV/AIDS)
The key to the rampant spread of HIV in the poorest parts of the world, like Africa, is the unavailability of cheaper ways of monitoring the killer disease.
To counter the un-affordability of the poor Africans and the poor health facilities in the country, a Harvard Medical School team of researchers have come up with a new device that looks like a business card and can measure T cells count in the infected patients in both an inexpensive and easy way.
The new affordable device will soon be used to measure T cells in HIV patients in Rwanda, by which the doctors can decide on when to start medication and also assess how well the medicine is working.
Rwanda will be the first to see the new simple looking, but life-saving device. Yes, the device can help practice HIV medicine dramatically.
Knowing what it means not having an accurate T-cell count for the patient, Bill Rodriguez, an infectious-disease expert at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in Boston said,
It’s almost impossible to manage the disease.
The person can look reasonably well clinically even when the immune system is wiped out. Then one opportunistic infection can take over and have a devastating effect.
Hope this device once accepted well by the world, would surely be a relief-booster for the poor countries with high rates of HIV cases.
