Comments on: Are HIV tests accurate?

By: flowerman

flowerman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:21:49 +0000

As with any testing there is always room for error. HIV testing is 99.6% accurate. As for the antibodies there are medical conditions that will give a false positive, Lupus is one illness that will do this. And there is always human error, but the two items are very rare.

When you body develops antibodies, they are very specific to an illness.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:01:10 +0000

Your body develops specific antibodies to fight off each individual infection it contracts, it’s not a “one antibody fights all” situation. So if you have antibodies to HIV in your blood, it means that you DO have HIV. The only time this may be false is in newborn babies - if they have a mother who is HIV positive, they will have her antibodies in their blood stream for up to 18 months after birth. At 18 months old they should be tested for HIV, not before.

By: Erki T

Erki T — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:19:03 +0000

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By: Snout

Snout — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:41:16 +0000

Yes they are, if used correctly.

Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system. They have all differently shaped tips, called antigen binding sites. Each type is specifically shaped to fit a particular antigen, (usually a protein or polysaccharide), on the target virus or microrganism, like a key with a lock. For example, the p24 antibody is shaped to fit the p24 antigen, and the hepatitis B surface antibody is shaped to fit the hep B surface antigen protein, and so on.

The antibodies tested for in an HIV test are antibodies that specifically fit antigens on the HIV virus particle, not just any antibodies that happen to be circulating in the blood.

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From your link:

“I can only remember one or two cases in the world about people claiming themselves to be HIV negative several years after they tested positive,” said [chief scientist] Shao. “And scientists still harbour doubts over those cases,” he said.

False positives can occur with any testing process, but they are extremely rare with HIV antibody tests done according to correct protocols.. There are more than two cases out of the many millions of tests done so far, but not many more than that.

The false positive rate is generally between 0.0004% and 0.0007% of tests done according to the protocol necessary to make a diagnosis of HIV infection (repeatedly positive ELISA plus positive Western Blot).
(and check the links for the actual research)

It is one of the most accurate tests in medicine.

By: Jay Jay

Jay Jay — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:22:31 +0000

I DON’T KNOW BUT SO FAR THEY ARE PRETTY ACCURATE I MEAN HOW OFTEN DO YOU HEAR ABOUT SOMEONE BEING TOLD THEY HAVE IT AND YEARS LATER FINDIN OUT THEY NEVER EVEN HAD IT???