Overview

This software (download) procedure provides a method to adjust estimates of HIV incidence from the Serologic Testing Algorithm for Recent HIV Seroconversion (STARHS) for testing bias due to the seroconversion effect (SCE). For further details, please see the following report recently published in AIDS on February 20, 2009:

Remis RS, Palmer RWH. Testing bias in calculating HIV incidence from the Serologic Testing Algorithm for Recent HIV Seroconversion. AIDS 2009; 23: 493-503.

The program incorporates HIV incidence estimates calculated using any number of window periods, but we suggest from three to five (three being the minimum to fix the curve; over five is probably unnecessary). There should be a minimum range in values between the lowest and the highest window period such that the highest should (ideally) be at least three times the minimum.

In our work, to calculate input incidence values, we used results from the Vironostika assay (Organon-Teknica/bio-Mérieux) with standardized optical density (SOD) cut-offs of 0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 1.25 and 1.50 corresponding to window periods of 97, 133, 170, 207 and 244 days, respectively.