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Ask the Experts about Opportunistic Infections

 

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Jan 6, 2002

i recently consulted a doctor about hiv. he told me that hiv will take years to detect and one can never be sure if he contracted the decease or not even after a year. is it true? can i simply go to any clinical or medical laboratory here in the philippines and ask for an hiv test or do i need to go to america to do the test? is 'hiv anti-body' test the same as an 'hiv test'?

Response from Dr. Feinberg

Your docotr is wrong. As long as you do not interfere with the validity of testing by going out and having repeated unsafe sexual exposures, if you test negative at 3 months after the original exposure that should be close to 100% correct, and if you re-test negative at 6 months after exposure, you will have absolute certainty about the result AS LONG AS YOU DON'T RE-EXPOSE YOURSELF TO HIV. The "HIV antibody test" is the same thing as an "HIV test". You should be able to find this test in the Philippines.



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