Topic

Can Doctors Help me to Post this in Experts Forum

Dear Doctors Thank you for your time and for providing this great forum. I am a young man from Australia. Since last year (2013) I've had few unprotected anal sex (being receptive partner) with different guys of unknown status. One of them is my friend. The last incident was on 4th August 2013 after that I had four tests in total: AFTER 26 days (on Day 27 ) EIA assay: HIV1/2 Ag/Ab testing (in clinic1) On day 52 Abbott Architect: HIV1/2 Ag/Ab testing (in clinic 2) After 296 days Abbott Architect: HIV1/2 Ag/Ab testing (in clinic 2) After 315 days Alere Determine HIV-1/2 Ag/Ab Combo Rapid finger prick Blood (in clinic 3) ALL NEGATIVE! I've tested Four different tests in three different places and the results are all negative. After my last exposure I haven't had any sex and surely no drugs use. I know that after 4 weeks all 4th generation HIV tests results are considered fully conclusive But I am still worrying about the accuracy of my tests and doubting the procedure of the lab-based tests that might cause some lab errors to give me false negatives. 1. Is there any medical or scientific chance that my status is not negative after these tests? It has been said that there are individuals develop antibodies very late up to years is it true? 2. How accurate is my last 4th generation rapid combo? It says 100% sensitivity (what does this mean?) on Alere company website and >99% accuracy on Australia government page. Is it good enough to be fully conclusive? 3. Are all these rapid tests (3rd 4th generations) as accurate as these lab-based DUO tests AFTER 3 months or even 6 months? Is this applying to all people in this world? 4. When lab-error occurs now in developed countries is it more likely to give no result rather than a false negative? why? 5. Can individuals be confident they are DEFINITELY negative and fine and put the whole thing behind them after these tests that I've done? Can I move on?

2015-04-07 05:53:03

David

Replies

Contents

Welcome to our Forum. I'll try to help. My sense is that you are far far more concerned about your status that you need to be. Your multiple tests are unequivocally negative and further testing related to he encounters you describe is not warranted form a medical perspective. Your challenge is to come to believe the results you have. I hope my comments will help you to do so. In answer to your specfic questions: 1. Is there any medical or scientific chance that my status is not negative after these tests? It has been said that there are individuals develop antibodies very late up to years is it true? No there is no scientifc reason not to believe your tests. I suspect you got your mis-information about persons taking years to develop antibodies from the internet. If so I suggest you stay off the internet. 2. How accurate is my last 4th generation rapid combo? It says 100% sensitivity (what does this mean?) on Alere company website and >99% accuracy on Australia government page. Is it good enough to be fully conclusive? There are no tests of any sort for any process that are 100% accurate but each of the tests you were tested to are close to that- well over 99.9%. When you combine the 4 results there is simply no realistic way that you could have HIV from the encounter you ahve described. 3. Are all these rapid tests (3rd 4th generations) as accurate as these lab-based DUO tests AFTER 3 months or even 6 months? Is this applying to all people in this world? Yes after three or six months all of these tests are equally accurate. 4. When lab-error occurs now in developed countries is it more likely to give no result rather than a false negative? why? Either is a possibility but you should not worry about it. There is no realistic reason to think that the test would be done wrong 4 times in different labs. Please do not worry about it. 5. Can individuals be confident they are DEFINITELY negative and fine and put the whole thing behind them after these tests that I've done? Can I move on? Yes I would urge you to move on. I also strongly encourage you to use condom and practice safe sex for furture encounters.

2015-04-07 05:53:39

David