Comparison of an In-House Quantitative Real-Time PCR and COBAS ampliprep/Taqman Roche for determination of viral load for HIV type 1 non-b ; Comparaison d'une RT-PCR in house et du kit COBAS Ampliprep/Taqman Roche pour la détermination de la charge virale HIV

peer reviewed ; Context: The in-house techniques or experimental methods are increasingly recommended for their low-cost reagents for the determination of the Viral Load (VL) in resource-limited settings. The objective of this study was to compare the determination of VL from HIV-1 non-B samples by an in-house technique with the COBAS AmpliPrep/TaqMan version 2.0. Method: In this cross-sectional study, 39 plasma samples from patients infected with HIV type 1 non-B from N’Djamena and Kinshasa were used to determine the VL using the two techniques. Results: The mean values of VL are respectively 4.68 ± 1.26 and 4.58 ± 1.33 log10 RNA copies/ml for the COBAS AmpliPrep/TaqMan assays and the in-house assays. A good correlation (Spearman Correlation) was obtained, with a coefficient (R2) of 0.9452. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that there is no significant difference between the results of VL determined by the COBAS AmpliPrep/TaqMan assays and the in-house assays used.