This pilot study will partly take place at the outpatient HIV clinic, based in the Hospital National Simão Mendes (HNSM) in the capital city Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. HNSM is the main hospital in Bissau, and the HIV clinic is the biggest HIV treatment center in Guinea-Bissau in terms of patients on follow-up. The Bissau Nationwide HIV Cohort is a clinical HIV Cohort started in 2007. As of today, the investigators collect data from 9 outpatient HIV clinics in the country, and samples will be collected from all 9 clinics.
Study participants who present at the HIV clinic will be thoroughly instructed in correct usage of the vaginal and urine devices by trained healthcare workers. At the HIV clinics, facilities will be available for the women to conduct self-sampling in privacy, before handing in the samples. At the local laboratory, the dry brush head will be suspended in Thinprep medium and stored until shipment to Denmark. The urine samples will be stored at room temperature for up to 7 days before transferred to a -20º freezer until shipment to Denmark.
Analyses: vaginal and urine samples will be analyzed at Randers Regional Hospital using the Cobas 4800 HPV DNA test. The Department is specialized in self-collected samples from previous studies. This procedure is considered feasible based on data showing that the dry brush is analytically stable for HPV DNA detection for up to 32 weeks at temperatures ranging from 4 ºC to 30 ºC. After HPV analyses, residual material from the self-collected samples will be stored in a biobank in Denmark at Aarhus University hospital and saved for future research.
