To investigate the epidemiological features and risk factors of HBV, HCV, and syphilis infection among HIV‐infected patients in West China Hospital. A retrospective study was conducted with HIV‐infected patients from 2014 to 2016 in West China hospital, SCU. Serum makers for HBV, HCV, and syphilis were detected. Among 894 HIV‐infected patients, the prevalence of HIV/HBV, HIV/HCV, HIV/syphilis co‐infections was 14.4%, 5.7%, and 18.9% respectively. HIV/HBV/HCV, HIV/HCV/syphilis, and HIV/HBV/syphilis triple co‐infection was 7 (0.7%), 12(1.3%), 29(3.2%) respectively. The rate of effective vaccination against HBV was only 7.7% in HIV‐infected patients. Age (OR = 0.243 95% CI: 0.114 −0.518), ethnicity (OR = 3.654 95% CI: 1.849‐7.218) and education level (OR = 0.140 95% CI: 0.033‐0.606) are risk factors affecting HIV/HCV co‐infection. A high prevalence of HIV/syphilis, HIV/HBV, and HIV/ HCV co‐infection can be observed in west China. The rate for HIV‐infected patients who were effectively vaccinated against HBV was fewer than 10%.

Visual acuity is still developing in preschoolers even at age 6. Most children with myopia and amblyopia can be identified with age-specific, monocular UCVA cutoffs in vision screening using Tumbling E charts, with tolerable false-positive rates. Further studies are needed to define the age at which children without significant refractive errors reach 20/20 UCVA.

The resurgence of syphilis in recent years has become a serious threat to public health worldwide, and the serological detection of specific antibodies against Treponema pallidum remains the most reliable method for laboratory diagnosis of syphilis. This study examined the performance of the recently launched HISCL anti-Treponema pallidum (anti-TP) assay as a screening test for syphilis in a high-volume laboratory. The HISCL anti-TP assay was tested in 300 preselected syphilis-positive samples, 704 fresh syphilis-negative samples, 48 preselected potentially interfering samples, and 30 "borderline" samples and was compared head to head with the commercially available Lumipulse G TP-N. In this study, the HISCL anti-TP assay was in perfect agreement with the applied testing algorithms with an overall agreement of 100%, comparable to that of Lumipulse G TP-N (99.63%). The sensitivity and specificity of the HISCL anti-TP assay were 100% (95% confidence interval [CI], 98.42% to 100%) and 100% (95% CI, 99.37% to 100%), respectively. Considering the excellent ease of use and automation, high throughput, and its favorable sensitivity and specificity, the HISCL anti-TP assay may represent a new choice for syphilis screening in high-volume laboratories.

This study is the first attempt to evaluate the use of the Elecsys® HIV combi PT assay in identifying acute and early HIV infection in southwest China. We also analyzed the extent of cutoff ratios overlap between false-positive and true-positive results to aid the identification of HIV infection, using samples from the West China Hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan Province from April 2012 to December 2013. Reactive results from a screening test were retested and all repeatedly reactive samples - if available - were confirmed with Western blot, HIV-1 p24 antigen, or HIV-1 RNA. Of 241,840 samples screened, the Elecsys® HIV combi PT assay identified 54 patients with acute and early HIV infection; 99.8% cases with cutoff index ratios ≥50 were proved to be true-positive HIV infection and 95.6% cases with cutoff index ratios <15 were falsely positive. In conclusion, the Elecsys® HIV combi PT assay can identify acute and early HIV infection, including those who might have been missed by third-generation HIV screening assays and Western blot. However, cutoff index ratios <15 are not always false-reactive results; a definitive result cannot be attained without further confirmation. In resource-poor regions where a HIV-1 nucleic acid test may be unaffordable, detection of HIV-1 p24 antigen can be an alternative strategy to diagnose HIV infection in individuals with a negative or indeterminate Western blot.