CYFLOW CD4 Counter leading at a CD4 Workshop of WHO in Jakarta!

MoH in Tanzania repeatedly gives out embarrassing statments contradicting the international ressearch community.

Partec's chief scientist Dr. Volker Ost in a respectful talk with the former MoH (2005) : Hon. Anna Abdallah

According to a report submitted by chief scientist from PARTEC Germany - Dr. Volker Ost - the Cyflow counter is leading in performance and excellence. (see original PARTEC statement at the end of this article)
It is said in press articles from Tanzania, the sitting MoH has banned the CYFLOW machines from TANZANIA for reasons of poor performance.

This repeatedly published statement of the current Minister of Health contradicts the huge majority of the scientific papers and field reports published in international scientific journals.

It is astonishing that obviously some WHO "experts" (who are co-chairing meetings with BD representatives) and the MoH of Tanzania who is a Professor of medicine himself are obviousyl not able to do state of the art literature ressearches. Any docotrate student in the world is able to perform this exercise. http://www.pubmed.com/ is only one of the sources used by the international ressearch community and every medical students. Where are the publications underlinig the statements of the MoH of Tanzania?

Currently PARTEC CD4 counters are used all over the world in more than 60 countries including the USA (!), almost all European Countries, Canada, China, India, Nigeria, Malawi, Sudan and Japan.

EVEN SOME WHO DEPARTMENTS REPEATEDLY ORDERED CD4 COUNTER FROM PARTEC. It stays to aks the question why WHO is obviously not able to speak with one voice.

Best Technologies worldwide in the same quality and for the same price of less than 3 US$ per test including cd4% for children!

Among the many International research institutes which have evaluated the CyFlow and the Partec absolute counting method very successfully with excellent performance or are using the CyFlow with best success in their programmes are for example:

• Harvard School for Public Health, Boston, USA
• Institute of Human Virology, University of Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• PEPFAR Programmes in Nigeria
• AIDS Prevention Initiative Nigeria (APIN)
• Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal
• MSF Malawi, MSF Belgium, MSF France
• Laboratory of Immunology, Department of Microbiology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
• Croix-Rouge Française, Paris, France
• Laboratoire d’Immunologie Hopital Pitiè Salpetriere, Paris, France
• Institute of Immunology, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
• Spallanzani Hospital, Rome, Italy
• Servizio d’Immunologia Istituto Pascale Hospital, Naples, Italy
• Infectious Diseases Clinic San Raffaele Hospital, Milano, Italy
• Institute of Immunology, Robert-Rössle-Klinik Berlin, Germany
• Institute of Laboratory and Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Bad Oeynhausen, Germany
• Institute of Immunology and Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Lübeck, Germany
• Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Münster, Germany
• Institute of Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Münster, Germany
• Institute of Radiation Biology, University Hospital Münster, Germany
• California Department of Health Services, Richmond (CA), USA
• Noguchi Memorial Institute, Accra, Ghana
• Université de Ougadougou, UFR/SVT, Burkina Faso
• Hopital General de Douala, Cameroon
• Hopital Laquintinie de Douala, Douala, Cameroon
• Programme des Recherche Santé, Faculté des Sciences, University of Douala, Cameroon
• Hopital La Pette, Marua, Cameroon and MSF Younde, Cameroon
• Centre Hospitalier Kigali (CHK) / Projet RWA21, Lux Development, Kigali, Rwanda
• many more...


From the Partec's press statement:

"21.12.2007

Dr. Volker Ost +49 2534 8008 - 0

Report from WHO / MoH CD4 Counting Workshop in Jakarta, 17-19 December 2007
WHO / MoH CD4 COUNTING WORKSHOP REPORT (17-19 DEC, JAKARTA, INDONESIA)

The Ministry of Health in Jakarta/Indonesia and the regional WHO office organized a CD4 counting training workshop for lab technicians from December 17 to 19, 2007.

Three manufacturers have participated at the workshop: BD, Guava and
Partec. The workshop was attended by 27 lab technicians and doctors as
well as officials from MoH and WHO.

The workshop started on Monday morning, December 17 in the Dharmais Hospital in Jakarta. Following the opening ceremony Dr. Agus and Dr. Martha gave lectures about the background of CD4/CD4% counting and the technologies in use. Advantages of single platform and dual platform techniques were presented and discussed. Important issues were quality control and quality assurance. According to Dr. Agus there will be ring trials started soon with the support from Dr. Kovit in Bangkok who will provide the reference material.

An WHO consultant arrived in the afternoon to have a round table discussion with company representatives. He had to find out for what reason the deliveries for BD CD4 reagents for BD instruments in Indonesia were delayed.

It was pointed out in the discussion that Partec and its local representive company Europ Continents Indonesia have a threefold strategy for in-time deliveries: (1) local stock in Jakarta for immediate deliveries, (2) minimum 12 to 13 months shelf life time for reagents, i. e. 12 months shelf life time at customer site and (3) partial deliveries of reagents as agreed with the purchaser.

Later during the day, the three companies had the chance to introduce their technological concepts and diagnostic products for HIV monitoring by CD4 absolute counting for adult patients and CD4% counting for pediatric patients to the assembly.

On Tuesday the workshop started with three groups at the three different instruments from BD, Guava and Partec. Three groups with each 9 lab technicians and doctors were built. When the groups arrived at the Partec site, they were introduced into the CyFlow instrument and sample
preparation. The sample preparation is very easy and quickly done. The nine samples of the group members were incubating simultaneously (15 minutes) and were run by each of them one after the other. There is no time restriction when running samples after sample preparation.
The result data were immediately noted and further questions were answered and discussed. All three groups came and left in time. The timing problem in the evening arose from the fact that sample preparation took very long time at the Guava and BD instrument or for further reasons, all which have not occured at the group using the Partec CyFlow technique where sample preparation was utmost quick and easy.

The BD instrument had to be carried from the hospital room to the meeting room in order to finish samples even late while the other people were already discussion data.

After concluding the sample runs, the results have been evaluated and reported (mean value and coefficient of variation). Each group had a speaker who presented the data and gave comments about instrument operation and sample handling:


GROUP 1
--------------
CyFlow FACSCount Guava
mean 413 428 420
CV 5.1% 14% 7.7%


GROUP 2
--------------
CyFlow FACSCount Guava
mean 348 389 331
CV 5.5% 7.6% 19%


GROUP 3
--------------
CyFlow FACSCount Guava
mean 687 DNF 705
CV 8.9% DNF 18.8%

(DNF = did not finish)

All three groups gained the best CVs using the Partec CyFlow technique.

Furthermore, the participants were very much impressed about the absolutely easy and rapid blood preparation protocol featured by the CyFlow method.

In comparison to the 15 minutes protocol using the CyFlow technique, the preparation with the Guava and the BD FACSCount required at least 75 minutes (e.g. for Guava 60 minutes alone for the incubation). The significant difference in preparation time and preparation complexity for the different CD4 counting techniques was noticed by the lab technicians.

The result processing worked successfully for any sample on the CyFlow, but not all samples could be run with the BD FACSCount and the Guava. It was discussed that larger CV values from the Guava instrument may arise from the small blood sample volume (10µl, only).
The overall summary was therefore very advantageous to the favour of the CyFlow method. Participants liked the simplicity. The organizers asked why CD4 counting can be so easy when using the CyFlow technique.

Furthermore, the situation was discussed that BD is not able to deliver reagents in time to the Indonesian treatment programme. It happened repeatedly that CD4 test kits from BD arrived only after months while the shelf life was already expired.

On Wednesday morning with the closing ceremony all officials thanked the particants and the company members for their work.

Compiled by:
Dr. Volker Ost

Senior Scientist"