Conference Abstract | Volume 9 (ConfPro8): Abstract 74 | Published: 10 Oct 2026
Faustin Kanyabwisha1,2,3,&, Qiuhu Shi4, Obed Tuyishime2,3, Gallican Kubwimana1,2, Anthere Murangwa1,3, Zozimo Mpatswenumugabo10 ,Venuste Ntakirutimana7, Xin Chen9, Kathryn Anastos8, Ahmed Adedeji5, Thierry Habyarimana7, Cuthbert Musarurwa11, Leon Mutesa2,3,6
1Postgraduate Studies, School of Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, KN 75 St, Kigali, Rwanda; 2Research for Development (RD Rwanda), KG11 Ave Promise House Building 3rd Floor, Kigali City, Gasabo, Rwanda; 3Rwanda Military Teaching Hospital (RMTH), KK 80 St, Kigali, Rwanda, 4Department of Public Health, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA, 5School of Medicine and Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, 6Center for Human Genetics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, KN 75 St, Kigali, Rwanda, 7Department of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences, INES-Ruhengeri, Musanze, Rwanda, 8Division of General Internal Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, 10467, USA; 9Atila Biosystems Inc, 740 Sierra Vista Ave, Mountain View, CA, 94043, USA, 10Doctors without Borders (MSF), 11Department of Human, Biological & Translational Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Namibia, Bach Street, Windhoek, Namibia
&Corresponding author: Faustin Kanyabwisha, Telephone number: +250 788834773, Email: kanfaus@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1774-7739
Received: 11 Sep 2025, Accepted: 30 Oct 2026, Published: 10 Oct 2026
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: Human papillomavirus, HIV viral load, specimen stability, long-term storage, biobanking
©Faustin Kanyabwisha et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Faustin Kanyabwisha et al., Long-term stability of cervical and plasma specimens for hrHPV and HIV viral load testing in a Rwandan biobank. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2026;9(ConfPro8):74. https://doi.org/10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO8-0074
Long-term storage of biological specimens is essential for research and clinical monitoring, yet specimen stability data from low-resource settings are scarce. This study assessed the stability of archived cervical brush specimens for high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) testing and plasma specimens for HIV Viral load (VL) testing, while assessing the Research for Development biobank’s storage conditions.
An analytical cross-sectional paired reproducibility study was conducted using 269 archived cervical brush specimens and 256 plasma specimens from people living with HIV. Cervical specimens stored at -20oC for 72 months were retested for hrHPV using AmpFire, while plasma stored at -80oC for 24 months were retested for HIV VL using Abbott m2000. Agreement was assessed using Cohen’s kappa, weighted kappa, McNemar’s test, and concordance measures.
Overall agreement for hrHPV testing was excellent (κ=0.76, 95% CI 0.64-0.88, McNemar p = 0.860), with strong genotype-specific agreement for HPV18 (κ=0.87) and HPV16 (κ=0.79). HIV VL testing showed 98.8% agreement (κ = 0.97, p < 0.001) with perfect McNemar agreement (p = 1.000). VL categories demonstrated almost perfect agreement (weighted κ = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.91 – 0.98), with 88.3% (53/60) of plasma specimens remaining in the same VL category upon retesting.
Cervical and plasma specimens stored long-term in the Research for Development biobank demonstrated good stability for hrHPV and HIV VL testing. These findings support biobanking for clinical and research use in resource-limited settings, emphasizing standardized storage and quality control to preserve specimen integrity.
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