South Africa: Measuring new HIV infections offers new insights

In an article by Thomas Rehle et al. in the March 2007 edition of the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ), an unparallelled large sample of 15 851 blood specimens was analysed to estimate HIV incidence on a national scale for South Africa, indicating that the availability of laboratory-based tests for recent HIV infection now offers a direct measure for tracking the epidemic and evaluating the impacts of prevention interventions.