Article Sidebar
Published:
Oct 6, 2024DOI:
10.4314/ahs.v24i3.6Keywords:
Article Details
While African Health Sciences has been freely accessible online there have been questions on whether it is Open Access or not. We wish to clearly state that indeed African Health Sciences is Open Access. There are key issues regarding Open Access needing clarification for avoidance of doubt:
- 1. Henceforth, papers in African Health Sciences will be published under the CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution License) 4.0 International. See details on https://creativecomons.org/)
- 2. The copyright owners or the authors grant the 3rd party (perpetually and in advance) the right to disseminate, reproduce, or use the research papers in part or in full, format/medium as long as:
- No substantive errors are introduced in the process
- Attribution of authorship and correct citation details are given
- The referencing details are not changed.
Should the papers be reproduced in part, this must be clearly stated.
- 3. The papers will be freely and universally accessible online in an easily readable format such as XML in at least one widely recognized open access repository such as PUBMED CENTRAL.
B. ABRIDGED LICENCE AGREEMENT BETWEEN AUTHORS AND African Health Sciences
I submitted my manuscript to African Health Sciences and would like to affirm that:
1.0 I am authorized by my co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
2.0 I guarantee, on behalf of self and co-authors:
- That the paper is original, and has not been published in any other peer-reviewed journal; nor is it under consideration by other journal (s). It does not infringe existing copyright or any other person’s rights
- That we are/I am the sole author(s) of the paper and with authority to enter into this agreement. My granting rights to African Health Sciences is not in breach of any other obligation
- That the paper contains nothing unlawful, or libelous. Nor anything that would constitute a breach of contract, confidence or commitment given to secrecy, if published
- That I/we have taken care to ensure the integrity of the article.
3.0 I and all co-authors, agree that the paper, if accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. (see https://creativecommons.org/)
Main Article Content
High false hepatitis C antibody positivity rate in a regionally-inclusive population of non-renumerated blood donors in Uganda
Abstract
Background: Successful elimination of hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030 will partly rely on the availability and accessibility of affordable accurate disease testing platforms. In the past, testing of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in low resource settings of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has relied on anti-HCV testing using rapid diagnostic tests, chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (CMIA) and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISA) whose diagnostic accuracy has been sub-optimal. We determined the false positivity rate of a CMIA platform that is routinely used to screen donor blood for anti-HCV in Uganda.
Methods: 1,216 CMIA-screened anti-HCV-positive blood donor samples at four regional Ugandan blood banks, were subjected to a third generation ELISA and subsequently to nucleic acid testing (NAT).
Results: Of the above 1,216 samples, 1,122 (92.2%) were negative on ELISA and thus deemed false positives. Active infection (NAT positive) was detected in 98 (8.0%). Presumed resolved infection was recorded among 3 (3.2%) of participants that remained positive on the ELISA platform but negative on NAT.
Conclusion: The Architect CMIA assay exhibited very low specificity for anti-HCV testing. In this context, this finding may suggest need to employ testing protocols that include NAT or a combination of tests with higher validity.
Keywords: High false hepatitis C; antibody positivity rate; non-renumerated blood donors; Uganda.
