Togalabs, providing a shipping container facility at Sizophila Health Centre in Gugulethu, was opened in 2004 and is delivering sophisticated HIV testing services to the people living with HIV.

Dr Des Martin, director of Togalabs said the facility provided lifesaving services to patients who would be forced to return to the clinic for weeks while they wait for their test results ‘€“ some dying while waiting to be initiated onto antiretroviral treatment.

 ‘€œPatients can have their tests done and receive their results immediately without having to wait too long to get them’€, said Martin.

Presenters at IAS 2009 have spoken at length about the ‘€œdeath zone’€, a common occurrence in Africa where patients present very late and die while waiting to be started on ARV treatment. A study from the Free State revealed that over 80% of people dying in the health system were not yet on ARV treatment.

Martin said the laboratory system helped to get patients onto ARV therapy earlier at the same time making it simpler to monitor the immune systems of those already on treatment.

With the state of the art equipment the Togalabs provides services such as CD4 testing (measure of the patient’€™s immunity), viral load detection as well as identifying toxicity (drug side-effect) signs in patients who are already on treatment.  

The laboratory currently serves over 4 500 patients and can support 8 000 on treatment. When it was first initiated its sole purpose was to serve the needs of people with HIV/AIDS but with the growing HIV and tuberculosis co- infection rate it is also conducting TB tests.

The laboratory service is supported by the United States President’€™s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) with the medical equipment provided by BD. Pepfar also supports the training of staff working in the laboratory.

‘€œThe people working at the site are mostly members of the community who are trained to work in a laboratory setting through our empowerment programme’€, said Martin.

BD’€™s Vice President Global Health, Krista Thompson said the company would continue to supply the programme with equipment as it enabled an increasing number of people to access treatment.

‘€œWe need more good laboratories that are able to test people for HIV and at the same time be capable of determining who is supposed to be on treatment’€, she said.

Xoliswa Madikane, a laboratory technician at Togalabs said the laboratory currently provided more than 250 HIV tests every day.

‘€œWe prefer working hard doing as many tests as possible rather than losing patients because they cannot get their results in time’€, she said.

She said some patients developed resistance to the ARVs, but the hi-tech laboratory enabled them to trace those failing treatment very quickly. The laboratory is not only available to people attending the Sizophila clinic, but serves other health care facilities as well.

There are more than 10 Togalabs containers around South Africa as well as in Namibia and Malawi.