University of Brighton joins global research project to ensure people have access to high-quality tests for sexually transmitted infections (STI) including HIV and Syphilis – and they are recruiting members of the public to help.
ProSPeRo, the Project on Sexually Transmitted Infection Point-of-care Testing established by the Reproductive Health and Research Department of World Health Organisation, aims to evaluate and implement low-cost point-of-care tests (POCs).
The University is part of a global team of researchers from countries around the world including Australia, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, France, Guatemala, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Morocco, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Uganda and Ukraine.
The news was announced to coincide with today’s World AIDS Day on December 1, which focused on the fight against HIV and support for people living with HIV.
Professor Nigel Sherriff, the University’s Professor of Public Health and Public Promotion, said: “We are involved in a strand of research studies in Italy, Malta, Morocco, Peru, South Africa, Uganda, and here in the UK to conduct a clinic-based evaluation of STI POCTs.
“We are recruiting gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) who present at the Sexual Health and Contraception Service (SHAC), based at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
“Specifically, we are looking at POCT duo tests that can test for HIV and syphilis at the same time among MSM attending the clinic, and then seeing how well these tests compare to gold-standard reference testing.
“We are pooling our data with data from around the world to generate the largest ever data set on this issue to ultimately validate the use of these tests which can be particularly useful in resources-poor settings for identifying new infections without the need for expensive laboratory confirmation testing.”
Working with Professor Sherriff from the University of Brighton are Professor Jörg Huber, the University’s Professor of Health Sciences, and Dr Alexandra Sawyer, a Research Fellow in the University’s School of Health Sciences.
Collaborators from Brighton and Sussex University NHS Hospitals Trust are Celia Richardson, Lisa Barbour, Vicky Kennard, Daniel Richardson, Vittorio Trevitt, and Mohammed Osman Hassan-Ibrahim. Jaime Vera is from Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
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