News: Press Releases

 

Marlborough Massachusetts: July 1, 2008: PointCare Technologies, one of America’s leading companies providing diagnostic solutions in the worldwide effort to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, has received a World Bank grant to bring CD4/CD4% testing to rural Malawi.

 

Regular, repeated CD4/CD4% testing (examining the CD4 cells, also known as T-helper cells, in the blood) in HIV-infected individuals is essential to staging safe and effective HIV anti-retroviral therapy (ART). When a cocktail of ART drugs is taken daily, it can dramatically slow the development of HIV/AIDS.

 

The funding – a 2007 World Bank Development Marketplace grant of $198,300 – was awarded to PointCare as one of 22 winners from over 3,000 applicants. This highly competitive grant program identifies and supports innovative and early-stage projects with high potential in the developing world.

 

“Malawi is probably one of the least-cared-about countries in Africa” says Dr. Petra Krauledat, CEO of PointCare. “We are using this grant to decentralize CD4/CD4% testing, and are taking testing into the rural communities and villages where patients live. With this new accessibility, the project aims to offer improved clinical outcomes for HIV-positive patients.”

 

PointCare is working in Malawi in partnership with St Gabriel’s Mission Hospital with its eleven outreach clinics (catchment of 205,000 people) and six health centers (beyond the current catchment). “By outreach clinics, we mean a group of people who gather regularly in a building or even under a tree to receive regular HIV/AIDS counseling and treatment,” adds Dr. Krauledat. “Our aim is to build on the hospital’s established and successful HIV/AIDS outreach program by bringing CD4/CD4% testing from the central laboratory out into these remote clinics.”

 

PointCare brings diagnostics to the people with its compact, robust and portable diagnostics instrument called the PointCare NOW. This self-contained unit goes anywhere, and runs on alternate types of power. It delivers two categories of testing: CD4 count and CD4 lymphocyte % testing combined with hematology profiling.

 

Within minutes, T-cell depletion, anemia and abnormal white cell differentials are all reported on the spot – a first in the diagnostics industry. Designed to optimize precious patient-physician interaction, in less than eight minutes the PointCare NOW provides diagnostic information to the practitioner required for patient monitoring and ART, and empowers healthcare workers to begin immediate counseling and care.

 

Dr. Krauledat adds: “CD4/CD4% tests at the point-of-care are critically important because they indicate if the patient is ready for treatment. If you treat too early, you risk drug-resistant strains. If you treat too late, people die.”

“Before we introduced the PointCare NOW, Malawians had to travel to the hospital’s central laboratory twice – once for testing and a second time for their results and treatment – and they had to do that several times a year…it was too much for many people to cope with.” Dr. Krauledat adds: “The PointCare NOW really does bring diagnostics to people, no matter where they live and we’ve learned that simple-to-use diagnostics can make the difference!”

 

 

Close to 40 million people suffer from HIV/AIDS and 12 million African children have already been orphaned by AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa has more AIDS patients than any other region of the world: 22.5 million of its people were living with HIV at the end of 2007, and about 1.7 million more people were infected during 2007.

 

The Republic of Malawi, a small south-eastern African country of less than 13 million people, has suffered a devastating AIDS epidemic. Life expectancy among adults is only 38.5 years, and 650,000 Malawians have already died of AIDS. In Malawi, 10 people die of AIDS every hour.

 

 

PointCare Technologies is one of America’s leading companies in the worldwide effort to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. This privately held, FDA-registered, ISO-certified medical diagnostics company invents, develops, manufactures and markets medical diagnostic products. PointCare brings diagnostic capabilities to resource-limited urban and rural regions, enabling immediate identification and treatment of infectious diseases by healthcare professionals.

 

The company’s mission is to provide better diagnostic care to disadvantaged populations worldwide. PointCare collaborates with clinicians, scientists, engineers and other thought-leaders around the globe, and its strategic partners include some of the world’s most advanced clinical and diagnostics companies.

 

 

For more information, you are warmly invited to visit www.pointcare.net

 

Media Contacts:

 

Kim Beer, Director of Marketing

Tel: 508-281-6926 x 26

 

Bobby Feigler, Vice President Worldwide Sales & Marketing

Tel: 508-281-6926 x 10

 

PointCare Technologies, Inc.

181 Cedar Hill Street, Marlborough, MA 01752, USA

+1-508-281-6925