Geneva, 11 May 2023 – In a new report released today, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that access to point-of-care CD4 testing for HIV is under threat because US diagnostics corporations Abbott Laboratories (Abbott) and Becton Dickinson (BD) have decided to stop making crucial equipment to run CD4 tests. This business decision was made in response to decreasing demand for CD4 tests after the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommended switching from CD4 to viral load testing for HIV treatment monitoring, but CD4 testing remains an essential component of managing care for people with advanced HIV, and therefore production of these tests remains critically needed.

To safeguard access to lifesaving CD4 testing, MSF called on Abbott and BD to immediately reverse their decision to stop the production of CD4 equipment or transfer the technology to a manufacturer in a low- or middle-income country (LMIC) and support local production. In addition, we encourage the WHO to provide updated and explicit guidelines about the critical role of point-of-care CD4 testing.

HIV infects and destroys CD4 cells, which are a type of white blood cell that play a key role in the human immune system. CD4 tests count the number of CD4 cells in a blood sample: a low CD4 cell count indicates advanced HIV disease. Up to 30% of people beginning HIV treatment are diagnosed with advanced HIV disease, which requires immediate and specific medical care as the risk of death is high. CD4 tests can be carried out through large, laboratory-based devices or point-of-care devices. Point-of-care CD4 devices are battery-powered equipment or disposable rapid tests that require minimal or no laboratory infrastructure, making them especially useful in decentralised and low-resource settings.