Question
Can a flu jab cause a false negative?
6 February 2017. Related: All topics, CD4 and viral load, Starting treatment.
I had a flu injection on the 28 of December 2016 and on the 3rd my doctor tested my viral load although I wanted an HIV test. It came back positive with 120,000 copies. The doctor recommended I start ARVs, although my CD4 count was 579. I started on the 16th January. Could these results be accurate or not?
Answer
Thanks for getting in touch.
A viral load test tells you how much of the HIV virus a person has in their body. For a detailed explanation please see here:
https://i-base.info/ttfa/section-2/8-what-is-a-viral-load-test/
Having a vaccination for the flu will not influence a HIV test, nor a viral load test. Since having your viral load test, have you had a HIV test?
Its very possible that you can have a high CD4 count and also a high viral load, this is common. For your viral load to go down, treatment is the only option. Hence what your doctor has said is right. Its also recommend that everyone who is positive is on meds.
Because you’ve just started treatment, you may find our Introduction to ART guide helpful:
https://i-base.info/guides/starting
Hi Zakes,
Antibodies can be specific, so they respond to different viruses and infections.
An antibody is a type of protein made by certain white blood cells in response to a foreign substance (antigen) in the body. Each antibody binds to only one specific antigen. The purpose of this binding is to help destroy the antigen.
HIV is routinely diagnosed using an antibody test.
This looks for evidence of the body’s response to HIV. So the immune response is to the HIV antigen. An antigen is a small particle of infectious material that has been broken down in the body and recognised by the immune system.
Please see this page about how the immune system works.
This is nonsense – HIV testing is a scam. The fact is that a flu-shot is basically a small amount of flu so that the body releases Antibodies so that in the event of flu, the immune system can react faster to destroy the flu. So what happens when you test for HIV is that the fraudulent HIV test detects these Antibodies, which by the way are natural & every human being has them… And so the doctor would tell you that you are HIV positive & advice that you should immediately begin treatment…
This is a lie, Antibodies do not say anything about HIV…in fact HIV may very well not exist…this is a big money-making machine for the big pharmaceutical companies the governments.