detection on request
Background
Human Immunodeficiency Virus(HIV) is the etiologic agent of AIDS. Acute infection is either symptome free or presents with a flu-like disease. During the stage of acute infection at 2-3 weeks virus can be detected in the plasma by p24 antigen assay or by PCR based viral DNA test. After 3 weeks, antibodies can be detected in serum or plasma.
Screening for HIV is performed by highly sensitive and specific ELISA methods, positive results have to be repeated by a second sample due to serious consequences of the diagnoses to rule out switched samples or contaminations and subsequently has to be confirmed by the Western blot method.
HIV-2 is closely related to HIV-1, endemic in West Africa causing the same clinical disease, but time to develop AIDS may be longer.
Limitations
A positive HIV EIA must be confirmed by a second method that has to be based on an other principle of antibody detection. Cross reactivities in the screening EIA based test have been rarely described. Cross-reactions may be due to histocompatibility antigen mismatches or very rare in other viral diseases such as influenza.
Serology cannot be used in infants born to an HIV positive mother due to maternal antibody transfer by the placenta. Virus cultivation or DNA detection are more appropriate