Point-of-care (POC) tests for HIV infection have greatly increased the uptake of voluntary testing and counseling globally. While singleton POC tests for HIV are used to detect infection, link, stage, and monitor patients and will soon be sold over the counter in the United States for self-testing, singleton POC tests for blood borne and sexually transmitted infections are primarily used to screen for presence of infection. While POC tests for hepatitis C (HCV), hepatitis B (HBV), and syphilis have achieved high accuracies comparable to first line conventional laboratory tests, POC tests for TB are still under development.

Another exciting development in the pipeline is multiplexed biomarker-based or nucleic acid-based assays and platforms, which will allow for simultaneous screening of several infections. If made cost-effective, they will bring about a paradigm shift in the nature of screening and testing practices in public health and outreach settings. With fast expansion of m-health initiatives, the synergy of POC tests with mobile phones, test readers, and cloud-based servers could dramatically improve reading and communication of results, quality control and monitoring, data storage and retrieval.

This special call on POC diagnostics for HIV, related coinfections, blood-borne/sexually transmitted infections invites investigators to contribute original research articles, reviews, modelling, and cost-effectiveness studies on POC. We are particularly interested in original implementation/operational/interventional research studies that demonstrate the impact of POC on downstream linkages. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• POC tests for HIV
  • Detection of early acute and monitoring of chronic infection
  • Self-testing/in home testing
• POC tests for syphilis
  • Prevention of mother-to-child transmission
  • Surveillance and monitoring
• POC tests for HCV, HBV, and TB
  • Evaluation of newer POC assays
• General POC topics
  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
  • Methodological gaps and challenges in implementation
  • Cost effectiveness analyses
  • Modeling the impact of POC tests on care and treatment
  • Technological synergy (m-health, social media)
  • Novel platforms (multiplex POC or nucleic acid assays)

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/art/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/art/poc/ according to the following timetable: