Viral load monitoring in resource-limited settings: a medical and public health priority.

When antiretroviral therapy (ART) scale up began in Africa a decade ago, there was concern that lack of laboratory monitoring for patients receiving antiretroviral drugs would be an obstacle to providing treatment. To address this concern, the first set of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for ART in resource-limited settings rightly recommended that programmes should primarily use clinical criteria for monitoring treatment efficacy [1].