PHE-Scientific-HIV-1 LAg Avidity Kits (National Surveillance Programme)

Tender description

This will be ongoing as part of national surveillance programme. A change in the national surveillance programme for recent HIV infections or a development of a new assays that better fulfils the requirements of the survey will bring this to an end. This assay is only available from one supplier. It has been identified through testing to be the most suitable for the needs of the national programme. Alternative assays have not performed as well as this one. The assay has been licensed to this company by the US CDC. This assay has been developed by the US CDC. It has undergone independent evaluation by the Consortium for the evaluation and performance of HIV Incidence assays and has been shown to have the lowest false recent rate and an acceptable mean duration of recency. Being specifically manufactured for the purpose of identifying recent infection it has better quality control than other modified assays that are not designed for this purpose therefore as a national laboratory we should be using the most appropriate assay.