%0 Journal Article %A Iqbal, H. Syed %A Balakrishnan, P. %A Cecelia, Anitha J. %A Solomon, Suniti %A Kumarasamy, N. %A Madhavan, Vidya %A Murugavel, K. G. %A Ganesh, Aylur K. %A Solomon, Sunil Suhas %A Mayer, Kenneth H. %A Crowe, Suzanne M. %T Use of an HIV-1 reverse-transcriptase enzyme-activity assay to measure HIV-1 viral load as a potential alternative to nucleic acid-based assay for monitoring antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings %D 2007 %J Journal of Medical Microbiology, %V 56 %N 12 %P 1611-1614 %@ 1473-5644 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/jmm.0.47456-0 %K PVL, plasma viral load, RT, reverse transcriptase %K NAAT, nucleic-acid amplification technique %K ART, antiretroviral therapy %K IQR, interquartile range %I Microbiology Society, %X An inexpensive and technically less-demanding methodology to quantify HIV-1 viral load would be of great value for resource-limited settings, where the nucleic-acid amplification technique (NAAT) is impractical and/or resource-prohibitive. In this study, an HIV-1 reverse-transcriptase enzyme-activity assay (ExaVir Load assay, version 1) was compared with the gold standard RT-PCR assay, Roche HIV-1 Amplicor Monitor, version 1.5. A total of 121 plasma specimens were used for the evaluation. ExaVir Load had a sensitivity of 97 % and a specificity of 71 % in identifying specimens with <400 copies ml−1 in the Roche RT-PCR assay as being less than the detection limit of the assay (5500 copies ml−1). The mean difference (95 % limits of agreement) between Roche RT-PCR and ExaVir Load was –0.23 (−1.59 to 1.13) log10(copies ml−1) by Bland–Altman analysis. Significant negative correlations were seen between CD4+ T-cell counts and the ExaVir Load assay (r=−0.32, P<0.05), and between CD4+ T-cell counts and the Roche RT-PCR (r=−0.38, P<0.01). The present study with HIV-1 showed a strong correlation between the ExaVir Load assay and the RT-PCR assay. Hence, the ExaVir Load assay could be considered for use in resource-limited settings as an alternative viral-load assay to the standard NAAT-based assay after further evaluation with prospective specimens. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.47456-0