A Canadian study evaluated the accuracy of a widely used saliva test for HIV and found it to be comparable to traditional blood testing.
Fox News report:
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be diagnosed from a mouth swab as accurately as from a blood sample, Canadian scientists said.
Researchers from McGill University in Montreal said that their saliva HIV test OraQuick HIV 1/2 was 99 percent accurate for HIV in high-risk populations and about 97 percent in low-risk populations.
The oral test works by detecting whether HIV antibodies are present in a person’s oral fluid and gives a result within 20 minutes.
“Testing is the cornerstone of prevention, treatment and care strategies,” study leader Dr. Nitika Pant Pai said. “Although previous studies have shown that the oral fluid-based OraQuick HIV 1/2 test has great promise, ours is the first to evaluate its potential at a global level.”
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