HIV Screening

HIV Screening

February 8, 2020
Information on HIV / AIDS

HIV or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus is virus that specific to humans, and can infect the immune system by infecting a group of white blood cells that have the function of protecting the body. The clinical symptoms are initially characterized as an influenza-like illness and after this stage; the disease enters the asymptomatic phase. The body then suffers from a severe immune deficiency, called AIDS, due to excessive defenses and destruction of white blood cells.

The most important symptoms of the disease;

As mentioned before, at the beginning of the infection, a person with the flu-like symptoms develops and at the end of the illness and at the beginning of the AIDS stage, the following symptoms occur:

Symptoms such as anorexia, weight loss, chronic diarrhea, oral thrush, types of bacterial and fungal infections, enlargement of the lymph nodes, etc. appear at the end of the illness and the onset of AIDS.

What are the ways to diagnose the disease?

Serologic screening tests can detect antibodies in the blood of infected people. In the event of infection with the virus, screening tests are positive after 1-3 months and in some cases after 6 months. It should be noted that tests such as P24 antigen could detect the disease within 2 to 3 weeks after infection.

HIV Approved Laboratory Tests

Since in some cases screening tests are associated with false positive results, sensitive screening tests such as western blotting and PCR are necessary when the results of screening tests are positive.

Molecular PCR tests can be performed when the infection is 1 to 2 weeks old.

Patient conditions for testing:

The test is performed on a blood sample and does not require any special conditions such as fasting.

What puts us at risk is risky behaviors, not living with the infected

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