A rapid, point-of-care test, which aims to reduce the ‘window period’ through the detection of both antibodies and p24 antigen has poor performance in a clinical setting, researchers report in an article published online ahead of print by the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Whilst the test reliably identified people with established HIV infection, it delivered false negative results to the majority of individuals who were very recently infected with HIV.

An essential study day for Health Advisers, Counsellors, Doctors and Nurses working in sexual health and HIV

Our aim is to provide a practitioner perspective on approaches to partner notification (PN)—some old, some new—which may improve the control of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, in a variety of settings.

PN services support patients with STI/HIV in the difficult task of informing often unsuspecting partners—past or present—of their possible exposure to an STI and hence the need to seek medical care. It is an essential component of STI management and control, protecting patients from reinfection, partners from long-term tissue damage from untreated infection and the community from onward transmission. Beneficial dimensions include ethics (duty to warn), disease control (case finding) and epidemiology (identifying factors associated with STI transmission)