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IANAD, but AFAIK, HIV tests check for antibodies: Your body's response to HIV. So how do they check that the virus is gone? AFAIK, the antibodies would remain
by tieTYT 13y ago
IANAD, but AFAIK, HIV tests check for antibodies: Your body's response to HIV. So how do they check that the virus is gone? AFAIK, the antibodies would remain in your system even if you killed the virus. I guess if the child didn't produce her own antibodies, then they'd be flushed out of her system eventually.
Are they looking at a lack of anti bodies to determine a lack of virus? Or, do they have a special test where they actually look for the virus? If the latter, why don't they use this test to determine if someone has HIV for everybody? I recall reading it takes up to 6 months for the antibodies to show up in your blood stream. If you could just look for the virus itself, wouldn't you know sooner?
- codex 13y agoI think that the antibody test is the quickest, but if money is no expense, the gold standard is probably to mix potentially-HIV-infected blood (and/or tissue samples from lymph nodes) with compatible "clean" blood and then look for evidence of active infection under a microscope or via some other exotic method.
- frisco 13y agoYou can use PCR to check for the presence of viral DNA or RNA (the "viral load"). It's a direct test for the virus and is relatively cheap.