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Questioning your answers?
Aug 31, 1998
Hi,
Many times I read I see questions on your site regardng people who have symptoms closely related to HIV but yet come up negative on numerous tests, elisa, pcrs etc. Many times you will say forget about HIV and look for something else and yet other times you say get a bDNA test to truly rule out HIV. Why do you do that and what is the most effective test to officially rule out HIV??? Thanks....
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Response from Dr. Cohen
One reason we might have different answers is that there are three different people answering them...
But - my understanding is that a bDNA test can pick up on strains of HIV that are rarely seen in the US but can be seen elsewhere - and these strains are not measured by the PCR test. So if someone is in the very early period after exposure - and the antibody test is expected to be negative still - then the bDNA test might measure virus even while a PCR test would not. After 12 weeks or so - almost anyone - regardless of which strain of HIV they have - will have antibodies present that are captured on our HIV antibody tests.
Hope that clarifies this common situation.
CC
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