A critical appraisal of “Point-of-care HIV viral load in pregnant women without prenatal care: a cost-effectiveness analysis”

Reply

“…Although the theoretic potential for false negatives does not exist in the universal CD strategy, women with low viral load, who may have lower transmission than our baseline estimate, may be undergoing unnecessary CD. 2 As Premkumar et al 1 appropriately discussed, CD is not benign. We also concur that those birthing in low-to-middle-income countries are at higher risk for maternal morbidity and death than in the United States; our model incorporated risks and benefits specific to women living with HIV in the United States, which is the reason that we maintained our focus on research in this setting.…”

“…We appreciate the additional considerations outlined by Premkumar et al 1 and would like to respond to their thoughtful comments regarding our recent cost-effectiveness analysis on using a point-of-care HIV quantification test in pregnant women living with HIV without prenatal care.…”