The Accredited Laboratories in Medicine eV use World AIDS Day as an opportunity to point out the special importance of early diagnosis of HIV infections. The specialist laboratories are making an important contribution to dealing with the ongoing HIV pandemic. “As a professional medical association for laboratory medicine, one of our most important concerns is ensuring that access to HIV diagnostics is as low-threshold as possible. While there are good opportunities for high-quality diagnostics in larger cities in Germany, we continue to see deficits in rural areas. The no longer existing doctor’s reservation means that when HIV diagnostics are carried out using so-called rapid tests, the quality of the diagnostics in particular can no longer be monitored. This situation can sometimes be exploited by different actors. In an existing emergency situation, it is difficult for those affected to identify the best possible offer for them. The diagnosis of infectious diseases generally belongs to the overall medical responsibility and, beyond that, to professionalized structures. This is often the case in the area of self-help,” explains the first chairman Dr. Michael Müller.
“For many of those affected, an initially anonymous test is extremely important because of the stigma that unfortunately still exists. At the same time, there is still comparatively little testing in Germany on an international scale. Therefore, in our view, there should be more easy access to high-quality diagnostics in specialist laboratories. This can also be done through the possibility of so-called ‘self-sampling’, i.e. the self-collection of test material in collaboration between the specialist laboratories and treating doctors. Freely available tests on the market that are used without medical background and without quality indicators are not helpful in combating the HIV virus. We are therefore also calling for a return to the doctor’s requirement for HIV diagnostics, with possible exceptions for health authorities and AIDS charities,” adds laboratory doctor Dr. Martin Obermeier, who heads the Medical Infectious Diseases Center in Berlin (MIB).
“After an initial HIV diagnosis, laboratory monitoring of the HIV infection is an important part of the medical care of people infected with HIV. The accredited laboratories also enable safe care for HIV-2 infections, which occur less frequently in Germany. The corresponding test kits, which are often not even offered by the large in-vitro diagnostics manufacturers for reasons of cost-effectiveness, are sometimes missing here. This applies, for example, to the examination to determine the amount of HIV-2 virus in the patient’s blood, which is important for assessing the course of the disease. Here it is the specialists in the accredited laboratories who have to develop these themselves as so-called ‘in-house tests’ or ‘lab developed tests’ under difficult EU regulations. Only by developing laboratory procedures in-house can laboratories guarantee the best possible quality of care for patients,” concludes Obermeier.
About ALM eV
ALM eV is the professional association of accredited medical laboratories in Germany and currently represents over 200 medical laboratories with 900 specialists, around 500 natural scientists and around 25,000 qualified employees. The purpose of the association is to promote and ensure high-quality laboratory medical patient care in Germany. The members of the association ensure comprehensive patient care, even in structurally weak areas. The member laboratories are accredited according to the highest quality standard for medical laboratories (DIN ISO EN 15189) and fully comply with the guidelines of the German Medical Association for the quality assurance of laboratory medical examinations (RiliBÄK).