What Does A Reactive Test Result Mean
A reactive test result is a possible positive result, but means that you will need to go back to test again to confirm this. The healthcare worker will talk you through everything you need to know and help you with any worries that you may have.
You will need to give blood sample, which will then be sent to the lab for testing. At this stage, it’s very important to follow the advice of the healthcare professional.
What Is Hiv Testing
HIV testing, also called HIV screening, is the only way to know if you have the virus.
Several types of tests check your blood or other body fluids to see whether you’re infected. Most can’t spot HIV right away, because it takes time for your body to make antibodies or for enough of the virus to grow inside you.
What Does A Negative Hiv Test Result Mean
A negative result doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have HIV. That’s because of the window periodthe time between when a person gets HIV and when a test can accurately detect it. The window period varies from person to person and is also different depending upon the type of HIV test.
Ask your health care provider about the window period for the kind of test youre taking. If youre using a home test, you can get that information from the materials included in the tests package. If you get an HIV test after a potential HIV exposure and the result is negative, get tested again after the window period for the test youre using to be sure. To learn more about the window period and when a person should get retested, see CDCs How soon after an exposure to HIV can an HIV test if I am infected?. If you get an HIV test within 3 months after a potential HIV exposure and the result is negative, get tested again in 3 more months to be sure.
If you learned you were HIV-negative the last time you were tested, you can only be sure youre still negative if you havent had a potential HIV exposure since your last test. If youre sexually active, continue to take actions to prevent HIV, like using condoms the right way every time you have sex and taking medicines to prevent HIV if youre at high risk.
Don’t Miss: Free Hiv Testing Planned Parenthood
How Are Results Reported
Your test centre should clearly explain the results of your test.
If you have questions that were not explained, or that still worry you, ask the test centre first.
Rapid blood tests show two lines if positive or one line if negative, in a similar way as a pregnancy test .
Results from laboratory tests are given as negative, positive or indeterminate.
Negative or non-reactive means you are HIV negative. You do not have HIV .
Positive or reactive means the test shows you are HIV positive and you have HIV infection.
Indeterminate means the test result was unclear and needs to be repeated.
Reactive Results And Follow
Because of the possibility that a positive result from a single test is, in fact, a false positive, most healthcare professionals prefer to talk about the result being ‘reactive’ rather than ‘positive’. If the result is reactive, this indicates that the test has reacted to something in your blood and needs to be investigated further.
This preliminary result must be verified with a series of confirmatory tests. If the initial test was done on a rapid, point-of-care test, you might do a follow-up test with a second rapid test that works in a slightly different way. If you provided a blood sample for analysis in a laboratory, the staff there will run several tests on the sample before telling you the result.
Don’t Miss: Does Cookie Have Hiv
Where Do I Go For Help With Myquest
If you don’t find the answers you are looking for in the FAQs, you can:
- Access Quest Chatbot. The Quest Chatbot can answer many frequently asked questions about QuestDirect, MyQuest, and Appointment Scheduling. Quest Chatbot is accessible from the bottom of each page or by clicking the Contact Quest > Message Quest menu option. Once Quest Chat opens, just type your question.
- Access the Message Quest form. You can fill out a form that sends a message directly to our customer support representatives. While filling out the form, please specify a Reason for Contact, as it helps us get the message to the right support team.
C Reading The Results Of The Hiv Rapid Test
Don’t Miss: Does Nba Youngboy Have Hiv
What Happens During An Hiv Test
You will either get a blood test in a lab, or do your own test at home.
For a blood test in a lab:
- A health care professional will take a blood sample from a vein in your arm, using a small needle. After the needle is inserted, a small amount of blood will be collected into a test tube or vial. You may feel a little sting when the needle goes in or out. This usually takes less than five minutes.
For at home test, you will need to get a sample of saliva from your mouth or a drop of blood from your fingertip.
- The test kit will provide instructions on how to get your sample, package it, and send it to a lab.
- For a saliva test, you will use special spatula-like tool to take a swab from your mouth.
- For a fingertip antibody blood test, you will use a special tool to prick your finger and collect a sample of blood.
For more information on at-home testing, talk to your health care provider.
Rapid Diagnostic Tests For Hiv
- Although ELISA is the most accurate test to detect HIV, yet, quick results are need of the hour for early identification of patients requiring anti-retroviral therapy.
- Rapid diagnostic tests have an advantage over ELISA as these can be used in smaller laboratories where ELISA kits are not available also, they are cost-effective and provide quick and qualitative results which are easier to interpret.
- When a patient suspected to be HIV positive is supposed to undergo ELISA, it is important to note that a window of at least 4-6 weeks is to be observed between the test date and the date of exposure HIV positive individual which includes blood transfusion, coming in contact with body fluids of an HIV positive individual or having sexual contact with an HIV positive person.
- A small percentage of people may take up to 3 months to develop antibodies against HIV. It is therefore important to repeat the test after 3 months from the date of exposures.
- Once a rapid diagnostic test gives a positive result, it needs to be followed by a Western Blot test which is the most accurate test to diagnose HIV infection.
Recommended Reading: Can You Get Hiv From Dried Blood
What Are The Benefits Of Home Hiv Tests
HIV is much easier to manage and treat if its identified early and treatment is started as soon as possible.
Home HIV tests allow people to receive results almost immediately sometimes within minutes without having to wait for an appointment with a healthcare professional or take time out of their schedule to visit a lab.
Early identification is essential for successful long-term treatment and survival with HIV.
Home tests empower people to learn whether they have the virus earlier than any other testing methods. This can help them limit the virus effect on them and on others around them.
Early identification can even protect people they do not know, as their sexual partners could potentially contract HIV and then transmit it to others.
Early treatment can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, which makes HIV untransmittable. The CDC considers any viral load of
During the early stages, which is known as primary infection or acute HIV infection, it can be much easier for a person to transmit HIV to others because levels of virus in the blood are very high.
A person should consider taking an HIV test if they experience these symptoms after the following activities:
- having sex without a condom or another barrier method
- injecting drugs
Why Do I Need An Hiv Test
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 get tested for HIV at least once as part of routine health care. You may also need an HIV test if you are at higher risk for infection. HIV is mainly spread through sexual contact and blood, so you may be at a higher risk for HIV if you:
- Are a man that has had sex with another man
- Have had sex with an HIV-infected partner
- Have had multiple sex partners
- Have injected drugs, such as heroin, or shared drug needles with someone else
HIV can spread from mother to child during birth and through breast milk, so if you are pregnant your doctor may order an HIV test. There are medicines you can take during pregnancy and delivery to greatly reduce your risk of spreading the disease to your baby.
Don’t Miss: Does Nba Youngboy Have A Std
If You Have A Negative Test Result Does That Mean That Your Partner Is Hiv
No. Your HIV test result reveals only your HIV status.
HIV is not necessarily transmitted every time you have sex. Therefore, taking an HIV test is not a way to find out if your partner is infected.
It’s important to be open with your partner and ask them to tell you their HIV status. But keep in mind that your partner may not know or may be wrong about their status, and some may not tell you if they have HIV even if they know they’re infected. Consider getting tested together so you can both know your HIV status and take steps to keep yourselves healthy.
What Causes False Positive Results
HIV tests are based on the detection of antibodies to HIV. These are proteins produced by the immune system in response to a foreign substance, such as HIV. The main cause of false positive results is that the test has detected antibodies, but they are not antibodies to HIV they are antibodies to another substance or infection. Tests are not meant to react to other types of antibodies, but it sometimes happens.
There are other reasons why a test may give a false positive result. Depending on the testing device, reading the test result may rely on subjective interpretation. When the result is borderline, experienced staff give more consistently accurate results. A false positive result could also be the result of a sample being mislabelled, mixed up with another persons, or some other clerical or technical error.
Less commonly, false positive results may occur in people who have recently had a flu vaccine, are taking part in an HIV vaccine study, or have an autoimmune disease .
You May Like: How Long Can Hiv Go Undetected
Are Home Hiv Tests Accurate
Home tests are an accurate way to test for HIV. However, they may take longer to detect the virus after exposure than tests performed at a doctors office.
HIV antibody levels in saliva are lower than HIV antibody levels in the blood.
The at-home test is an antibody-only test. It does not test for HIV antigen, which is typically included in a fourth-generation HIV test done at a hospital or doctors office. Tests for HIV antibody and antigen can detect infection sooner.
Simply stated, the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test may not detect HIV as quickly as a blood test would.
Health Behavior Change: A Counseling Strategy For Clinicians Top Of Page
Many modern-day health risk behaviors result from voluntary behaviors such as unhealthy eating habits the use of tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs and, when it comes to HIV and STIs, the failure to utilize safety precautions that are, for the most part, readily available. Health risk behaviors, once considered the result of faulty decision-making, impulsive behavior, or characteristic of psychosocial development, are now recognized as dynamic conditions evolving across the lifespan. These are very difficult topics for many patients and providers to discuss, Dr. Armington noted, but they really are topics that should be explored with patients clinicians.
One method of applying health behavior change counseling is through motivational interviewing. This technique, which came about in the 1990s, was designed as a brief, non-confrontational way of helping patients make changes in their behavior. The goal of motivational interviewing is to create a safe and supportive rapport with a patient, in order to facilitate their thinking about their behavior and whether or how they might go about making changes. The technique acknowledges that the idea of change can have both positive and negative connotations and takes both of these aspects into account.
Read Also: How Long Does Hiv
When To Get A Test
Right after you’re diagnosed, you should get a viral load test for a “baseline measurement.” That gives your doctor something to compare future test results to.
When you start or change medicine, a test about 4 weeks afterwards helps your doctor decide how well it’s working. An effective drug combination, taken as prescribed, can often drop the HIV viral load to one-tenth of what it was within a month. The viral load is generally undetectable by 3 months, nearly always by 6 months.
After that, you should get a test as often as your doctor recommends to see how your medications are controlling the virus. If your HIV seems to be under control, you can probably be tested less frequently.
Show Sources
D The Interpretation Of The Hiv Rapid Test
The new rapid test is a specific test for both HIV antigen and HIV antibodies. Therefore it is more sensitive than older tests as it will become positive when there are either HIV antigen or HIV antibodies in the blood.
Read Also: Does Hiv Make Your Hair Fall Out
What Does A Positive Test Result Mean
If you receive an HIV-positive result, the healthcare worker will talk to you about what this means and what will happen next. For most people, receiving a positive diagnosis can be a shocking and emotional experience this is completely normal. The healthcare worker is there to support you and to answer any questions that you have.
Treatment means that HIV is now a manageable illness. Your healthcare provider can link you to support and treatment services, and any other health services that you need. Any questions that you have you can ask them its their job to help answer your worries. You will most likely be asked to schedule another appointment with them in the very near future. Its very important to keep appointments and use the support offered to you. You may also be offered screening tests for other sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis.
Find out what questions to ask and what support is available to help you cope with the results on our Newly diagnosed page.
It has almost been eight months since I was diagnosed with HIV. I was confused, ashamed, I kept asking, ‘How this could be?’. Slowly but surely Im beginning to accept that HIV is going to be a part of me and I definitely have control over it.
– Raya
Frequency And Timing Of Testing
After you start HIV treatment, not all lab tests will be conducted at every medical visit. Some will occur every few months. Others will depend on whether you are stable on HIV treatment and doing well. View this chart about the timing of various tests and talk to your provider about what is recommended for you.
Topics
Also Check: Oraquick At Walgreens
What Does A Positive Hiv Test Result Mean
If you have a positive HIV test result, a follow-up test will be conducted. If the follow-up test is also positive, it means you are HIV-positive.
If you had a rapid screening test, the testing site will arrange a follow-up test to make sure the screening test result was correct. If you used a self-testing kit at home, a positive HIV test result must always be confirmed by additional HIV testing performed in a health care setting. If your blood was tested in a lab, the lab will conduct a follow-up test on the same sample.
If your follow-up test result confirms you are infected with HIV, the next thing is to take steps to protect your health and prevent transmission to others. Begin by talking to your health care provider about antiretroviral therapy . ART is the use of HIV medicines to treat HIV infection. People on ART take a combination of HIV medicines every day. ART can keep you healthy for many years and greatly reduces your chance of transmitting HIV to your sex partner if taken the right way, every day. Your health care provider will help you decide what HIV medicines to take.
If you have health insurance, your insurer is required to cover some medicines used to treat HIV. If you dont have health insurance, or you need help because your insurance doesnt pay for the treatment you need, there are Federal resources that may help you.
To lower your risk of transmitting HIV,