Natl. Reference Lab: “The Developed Technology Has Enabled Us To Save Lives”

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Around the world, December 1st is recognized as World AIDS Day, and here at home, healthcare professionals are working daily to fight the virus and dismantle the stigma surrounding it.

Since the 1980s, The Bahamas has made significant progress, particularly in the area of testing. Our Joshua Williams visited the National Reference Laboratory for a closer look at how that work is being done.

World AIDS Day has been observed globally since 1988… and at the National Reference Laboratory, Director Dr. Indira Martin and her team are on the front lines every day ensuring accurate, reliable testing.

DR. INDIRA MARTIN — DIRECTOR, NATIONAL REFERENCE LABORATORY

“We test the person’s blood and we look for how much virus is in the blood. What we want to see is an undetectable viral load, which means that the drugs are working really well.”

“We do CD4 cell testing, which is a way of counting how many CD4 cells are in a given volume of blood. The CD4 count is really important because this is the general of the immune system.”

I toured the lab on Shirley Street, where staff demonstrated how samples are processed.

ANTONYA STRACHAN – PHLEBOTOMIST, NATIONAL REFERENCE LABORATORY

“It’s rapid , it’s 15 minutes. We call this our rapid test. It checks for antigen as well as antibodies.”

Other machines inside the lab test immune cell levels, provide early infant diagnosis, and even extract genetic material from each sample, helping determine how many copies of the virus are present in the plasma.

It’s a far cry from where HIV testing stood forty years ago.

DR. INDIRA MARTIN — DIRECTOR, NATIONAL REFERENCE LABORATORY

“Beginning in the early 2000s, viral load HIV testing was launched at what was then the HIV Reference Lab, and later CD4 testing followed. Since then, we’ve continued to progressively add more HIV-related testing as we go.”