{"id":6102,"date":"2021-06-01T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/?page_id=6102"},"modified":"2021-06-17T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T09:00:11","slug":"how-soon-can-i-take-a-test","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/testing\/how-soon-can-i-take-a-test","title":{"rendered":"How soon can I take an HIV test?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>This question usually refers to how soon after exposure can someone test for HIV.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This used to involve waiting 3 to 4 weeks before taking an HIV test (see Figure 6).<\/p>\n<p>However, 2020 UK guidelines now recommend waiting 6 weeks.<\/p>\n<p>This is because 4th generation HIV tests (antigen\/antibody) will detect 99% of infections at 6 weeks &#8211; compared to 95% of infections 4 weeks after exposure.<\/p>\n<p>A negative test after four weeks needs to be confirmed with a second test three months after the risk. This is to cover the small chance that you take longer than four weeks to generate an antibody response.<\/p>\n<p>Extending this to 6 weeks means the confirmatory test is no longer needed.<\/p>\n<p>In high risk exposures, especially if symptoms occur, viral load testing is sometimes used after one week.\u00a0This includes after a sexual assault or after a needlestick injury to a healthcare worker.<\/p>\n<p>In these cases a viral load test can exclude an infection when there are symptoms.<\/p>\n<p>Viral load tests are not approved to diagnose HIV. A negative result still needs to be confirmed by an antibody test three months after the risk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Figure 6: Recommended time from exposure to HIV test *<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><a class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Figure 6: Recommended time from exposure to HIV test\" href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/files\/2011\/12\/Figure-6-time-to-test.png\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-6107\" title=\"Figure 6 time to test\" src=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/files\/2011\/12\/Figure-6-time-to-test.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"541\" height=\"163\" \/><\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<p>* <em>This diagram needs to be updated to show the six-week window.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This question usually refers to how soon after exposure can someone test for HIV.\u00a0 This used to involve waiting 3 to 4 weeks before taking an HIV test (see Figure 6). However, 2020 UK guidelines now recommend waiting 6 weeks. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":5467,"menu_order":30,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-guides.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6102","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6102\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}