Concerned about positive screening results.

[MWEB]

My husband returned yesterday from going to give plasma with a notice from the clinic that his HIV screening had come back positive.  How common is this?  We are still pretty shocked and have plans to do further testing next week.

[Rob73!]

Sorry to hear that. I think the next move you should take are thus;

Speak to your Dr and arrange another test for your husband and for yourself (if you have been having unprotected sex) your test will tell you whether you have been infected in the previous three months. test again three months after you last had unproteced sex, to get a conclusive test result.

A diagnosis of being HIV postive is onyl confirmed after a reactive ELISA and Western Blot test. It is possible that this is\could be a case of a false positive test. They do happen. However, I don't want to give you false hope - just the facts.

One thing to add to that; Please don't trawl teh internet for information on HIV - bar a few sites that you can trust; Medhelp, thebody.com and Aidsmeds, there are a lot of bogus sites and sites that are not updated on a regular basis. I understand that this must be truly awful time for you both, but hang in there and find out what your sero status is then you can make your plans accordingly.

Please keep us informed as to the outcome of the further HIV tests. And good luck.

[joggen]

PCR screening tests are subject to false positives; it is pretty common but I don't know the exact stats.