NGUYÊN BẢN TIẾNG ANH

HỎI

Dear Dr. HHH,

i am from Vienna, Austria (europe). I hope my english is good enough ;-)

I have read all your posts about the "windows period" with hiv-testing. YOUR opinion is that
after 6 weeks a negative hiv-test is close to 100% confident.

But ALL (very serious) sources here in europe (austria, germany) in the internet, and ALSO DOCTORS say the following:

after 4 weeks: 60-65 %
after 6 weeks: 80 %
after 8 weeks: 90 %
after 10 weeks : 95 %
after 12 weeks: nearly 100%

I think we use the SAME tests here in 'modern' europe as in america. (3 rd generation and 4 th generation)

So from where YOU have your numbers and why you are so sure about "6 weeks is nearly 100%" ???

I had a risk 6 weeks ago (unprotected sex). The 4th generation test (combined antibody/antigen test)
was negative after 6 weeks. for YOU this is nearly 100% confident, for most of the people here in
europe only 80 %.

regards from austria


BÁC SỸ TRẢ LỜI

Thanks for your comments. Your english is fine!

My advice is based on data generally cited in the United States, from various sources. Yours are much more conservative than most experts believe. As I have stated before, part of the problem is in knowing when to "start the clock". The large majority of data on seroconversion time are based on studies in persons at high risk for HIV--which is logical, since they account for the vast majority of new infections. The problem is that there few such persons who know exactly when they were exposed. This generates considerable (đáng kể) uncertainty in calculating seroconversion time. Such data were more readily available early in the AIDS era, when transfusion-related cases oftenprovided a precise date of exposure, but such cases now are rare (with the modern HIV tests).

Few physicians providing care to HIV infected people can recall ever seeing a patient who was HIV negative at 6 weeks, who later was proved to be infected. This alone suggests the 80% figure is too low.

In the end, none of this matters too much, especially when advising people at almost zero (or truly zero) risk of acquiring HIV, which is the case with most questioners on this forum. The bottom line is that someone truly at risk indeed needs testing out through 3 months--for them it doesn't matter whether or not they have negative tests at 4, 6, or 8 weeks. For those at almost no risk, a 4-6 week negative result is (or should be) highly reassuring. The rest is quibbling.

Thanks again for allowing me to clarify this (again!). Merry Christmas--

HHH, MD