HemaSpot, a Novel Blood Storage Device for HIV-1 Drug Resistance Testing

Abstract

D rug resistance is a major challenge to sustained treatment success, particularly in resource-limited settings (RLS) with few antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimens and limited access to virologic monitoring and drug resistance testing (DRT) ( 1 , 2 ). Availability of these tests is restricted mostly due to cost and ex- pertise. HemaSpot is a novel dried-blood storage device that combines an absorbent paper to hold samples and a desiccant to maintain dryness, within a plastic cartridge (Spot On Sciences, Austin, TX). To date, HemaSpots had only been applied to Leishmania diagno- sis via antibody detection in dogs, showing high sensitivity and specificity ( 3 ). We examine the potential of HemaSpot use for HIV-1 DR