Abbott gets Chicago Innovation Awards for HIV test

Abbott gets Chicago Innovation Awards for HIV test

Tom Kuczmarski, president of Chicago-based management consulting firm Kuczmarski & Associates announced the award along with co-founder of the Chicago Innovation Awards.

Abbott Laboratories was recognized since it devised the nation's first test that could detect both HIV antigen and antibodies simultaneously. The result is much faster than other rival tests. HIV antigen is a protein that the virus produces right after infection. Antibodies, on the other hand, develop much later as the body works to fight the infection.

Medical experts are of the opinion that one in four people who get infected with HIV are not aware of it. 50 percent of transmissions come from people who do not know that they've been infected.

Known as the Architect HIV Ag/Ab Combination test, Abbott's innovation is aimed at spotting the virus up to 20 days earlier as compared to other tests. This has helped stem the spread of the virus earlier than ever before.

Studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that antibody-only tests miss up to 10 percent of HIV infections in a few high-risk groups. This is mainly because the body's immune system fails to produce antibodies. Abbott's test also yielded fewer "false positives" in clinical trials.

Dr. Peter Leone, medical director of the North Carolina HIV/STD Prevention and Control Branch at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill said: "A significant percentage of new HIV infections are transmitted by someone with an undetected acute infection, so identifying more people earlier offers a significant opportunity for counseling, which can reduce high-risk behaviors and also initiate antiretroviral treatment for early-stage infection, if appropriate"

Approved by the U.S Food & Drug Administration, the test has is already being offered in several Chicago-based hospitals.

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