Saliva as epidemiological tool for HIV surveillance in developing countries

Abstract

Isolation of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as saliva collected from HIV infected individuals and AIDS patients is sporadic, even with highly sensitive methods such as the polmerase chain reaction (PCR), and. has therefore a low utility in detecting HIV infection. On the other hand, IgG HIV antibodies persist in saliva after infection with the virus, and studies have shown a complete agreement between saliva and serum antibody testing in diagnosis of HIV infection. The same ELISA and Western blot (WB) kits used for testing sera can be used, with slight modifications, to screen and confirm HIV infection respectively. Thus confirmatory testing of blood samples should no longer be considered essential when HIV antibody is detected in saliva. The use of saliva for ariti-HIV screening appears to be attractive since specimen collection is simple, rapid, safe,. cheap and has better compliance compared with blood testing. Thus, saliva is recommended as an effective alternative to serum for mv surveillance programmes in developing countries.