Am I Positive? Page 3

  HIV Results

  Here we give a break to our novel. Let’s discuss about HIV test results. Blood banks usually use these ELISA tests. (ELISA is a type of technique of lab tests) Because ELISA tests are really good alternative to test many samples fast and reliably. Reliability is not 100% but bigger than 90%. So, blood banks and many laboratory use these fast ELISA tests. Also, ELISA tests have generations. The most common and recent is 4th generation which is last technology about reliability. And also, there are combo tests which both checks Anti- HIV molecules and p24 antigen of virus. So, in our story, we see 2 different results. Alex’ result is very high. That result needs to be confirmed but, we usually believe that if there is no mistake about testing samples, this result which is very big number is probably positive. In my laboratory, we saw lots of such results and confirmation tests were also positive. But if we take a look at Brian’s result which is 1.2, it is a very close result to negative. So, that anti HIV result needs a confirmation test. Most of countries use western blot test for confirmation. Western blot test is more expensive and hard to do. So, it is not used for screening but for confirmation. According to my experience, that borderline results were usually negative after western blot test. But in some cases, we saw “indeterminate result” as a result of western blot. So what happens if it is indeterminate? We will talk about it in our story.

  Meanwhile, Alex and Brian were very worried, Brian fainted. Alex was more relaxed compared to Brian. Because, Alex was grown in streets. He had seen many troubles, rapes, fights, being stabbed etc. So, Alex who is just around 16 years old had no hope, no expectations from life. But Brian had a smart family at first, but lost contact with his mother and father. Anyway, Brian was so worried.