Hi, I'm a 45 year-old healthy woman. Neither me or my husband (my sole sexual partner, and he says the same about me) have any risk factors for HIV. Two months ago I donated blood for a friend, they performed some tests then and considered I was a suitable donor. A week ago the hospital called me and in an interview informed me that I had tested positive for HIV and Syphilis. They advised me to do a confirmatory test. They never gave me a document about the method used for those tests. Both my husband and I decided to do a new screening serology test at another clinic, and it was reported as negative (HIV by chemoluminiscense and VDRL). What should be our next step?

Hi,

It would appear the initial tests were either falsely positive or there was some type of technical or clerical error. Your STD/HIV risk is essentially nonexistent and your follow-up HIV-antibody test and VDRL are negative. I would ask for a copy of both sets of your laboratory tests and bring them to your general medical doctor. If needed, he'll run one additional set of tests to definitively confirm your status. He should also notify the original hospital of its error or false-positive result so that they can trace down what may have happened with your initial test results.

Good luck.

Dr. Bob