Roche announced the Global Access Program is expanding beyond HIV, to include Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), Hepatitis B and C (HBV and HCV), and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) for low and middle-income country programs where the disease burden is the highest. The expansion of the Global Access Program highlights Roche’s commitment to improve access to cost-effective resources, implement scale-up programs, and contribute to the elimination of diseases in the regions with the greatest need.
Access to screening, early detection and prevention of transmission reduces the spread of disease. Tuberculosis is a major health crisis and is the leading cause of infectious disease deaths worldwide. Access to hepatitis diagnostic tests for HBV and HCV will improve the outlook of eliminating these chronic infections. And screening with HPV DNA testing can more accurately identify women at risk for cervical cancer than other screening methods. With vaccination and proper screening, cervical cancer is a preventable disease. Importantly, infection with HPV has been found to increase the risk of HIV transmission for both men and women. Similarly, women living with HIV are four to 10 times more likely to develop cervical cancer. Screening for co-infection (HIV+ HPV) can significantly improve disease management decisions and enable appropriate patient care.
In total, the Global Access Program now includes molecular diagnostics for HIV-1 viral load, HIV-1 and HIV-2 early infant diagnosis, the cobas Plasma Separation Card—a plasma collection device, MTB and MTB - RIF/INH, Hepatitis B and C, and Human Papillomavirus. All these assays run on the cobas 4800/6800/8800 platforms for various testing volume needs enabled by the cobas Plasma Separation Card that transports samples from remote areas/sites to the central lab for further processing.
