Can Dengue antibodies Hiv antibody test?

[john4302]

hello.. can u pls help me.. pls.. i have a very complicated question hope u can enlighten me. i had been diagnosed with dengue fever. i was positive for igG and igM antibodies. im on recovery right now by the way. my problem is if im going to take an rapid hiv antibody test. will it cause false positive or affect the result since hiv test are looking for antibodies. im so worried because i am positive to dengue antibodies. pls can someone help me thanks.mhoping for ur reply.

[mkh9]

You are welcome. Glad you were negative too!
mkh9

[john4302]

thanks a lot for the information you have given. i really appreciate your effort . i got tested at 6 month mark and the result is negative.. again thank u for leaving a comment in my question..

[mkh9]

Also, there are few false positives in general with the ELISA tests  but they confirm these with the western blot. The two viruses Dengue and HIV have a different genus  so they should be very different. There are less false positives with DNA based tests (molecular tests or NAAT tests). But all laboratory tests have some error this is why they confirm with the western blot.
see my last post.
mkh9

[mkh9]

I haven't yet found a specific comment in any article i have read but this is the general specificity of the HIV tests (not including the rapid take home tests which have a bit higher false positive rate).
.".The use of repeatedly reactive enzyme immunoassay followed by confirmatory Western blot or immunofluorescent assay remains the standard method for diagnosing HIV-1 infection. A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% for enzyme immunoassay, and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99%. With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000)."  It think is accurate. If I find anything else I'll let you know but I have looked at quite a few articles and haven't seen anything about Dengue and it cross reacting with HIV thus far.
Also even if  you are immunocompromised  6 months is the time when you are supposed to be clear. It you are worried you can try again at 1 year. But you can discuss this with a HIV specialist. Maybe they would make you feel better. Generally, the cutoff is 6 months.
mkh9

[john4302]

thank you for your answer. blue.. i really am thankful because noone in this forum seems to comment on my question. just one more thing.. i know this is a question that never dies. is the window period really 6 months? i mean i got tested 14 weeks post exposure it came back negative. and now im planning to take the test again for the fifth month mark. and now im worried because was diagnosed with dengue recently. im always thinking that my dengue antibodies might cause false positives on an hiv antibody test. anyways.. thanks again for giving me an idea. appreciate your time to comment on my question which is bothering me. no one seems to know the answer to my question.

[blueskies31]

Hi John4302, I'm sorry you were diagnosed with dengue fever.

HIV rapid tests are designed to specifically detect the presence of antibodies produced by your immune system in response to the presence of the HIV pathogen in your blood stream. It can take 3-6 months for your body to produce enough of these antibodies for rapid tests to produce accurate results. My understanding is that false negatives do not occur after the window period I mentioned above, even if you have other diseases. However, I have read about false POSITIVES occurring in patients who have syphilis.  Further blood testing is done after each positive result to determine whether a patient is in fact infected with HIV.

Needless to say, I think that if you wait the appropriate amount of time to take your test, you can trust your results. Just mention to the clinician that you have dengue fever, just in case. I'm confident you'll be fine.