Sample collection and processing
Five millilitres of venous blood was collected once from
each consenting HIV positive adult individual using
EDTA vacutainer tubes between February and December
2013. Two ml of blood was collected from young children.
Blood was centrifuged for 5 min at 3578Xg. Following
centrifugation, plasma was aspirated aseptically
and aliquoted into sterile labelled cryotubes and stored
at -80°c. These were then transported on dry ice to the
HIV/AIDS & Global Health Research laboratories at the
University of Venda, South Africa where they were
stored at -80°c until used.