Evaluation of the intercept oral specimen collection device with HIV assays versus paired serum/plasma specimens

Oral fluid has many advantages over blood-based techniques: it is less invasive, eliminates the occupational risk associated with needle stick accidents and collection can be self-administrated. Each individual test is packaged with a corresponding collection device. This study tested the suitability of the Intercept Oral Specimen Collection Device for different HIV diagnostic tests: three different rapid HIV tests and two adapted ELISAs, which were evaluated and compared with a gold standard on blood. In addition a total IgG quantification was performed to demonstrate the quality of the specimen. HIV antibodies were detected with a sensitivity of 100%, 99.3%, 98.6%, 100% and 95.7% for, DPP, OraQuick, Aware, Genscreen and Vironostika respectively using the Intercept Collection Device. Respective specificities were 100%, 100%, 99.3%, 97.3% and 100%.