Question
If I donate blood will I get a more reliable HIV test?
10 June 2010. Related: All topics, HIV testing, HIV transmission.
Wouldn’t donating blood be the most reliable and cheapest way to find an early stage infection? Why hang around for six months and wait when you can just donate blood for free?
I’ve been suffering for 3 months while still testing negative. I’ll be dead from wasting and brain damage before I test positive. I should have just given blood when I noticed the profound fatigue in my legs back in April.
I’m a dead man for sure waiting so long for these foolish tests. I wish they would have let me start HAART right away. Now it’s too late, I’m already too sick to go to work and to do daily chores.
Answer
Thank you for your question.
When you donate blood they use the same test on the blood as they do when you go to a clinic for a HIV test. There is no difference in the amount of time you have to wait. You would not have got your results sooner.
Most tests are accurate 2-3 weeks after a possible exposure. If you have just tested HIV negative 3 months after a possible exposure then you do not have HIV. It is possible your symptoms are due to something else altogether.
If you are too ill to go to work and do your daily chores then you should see your doctor and explain to him or her what you are feeling. I hope you find out what it is.
For more information on HIV tests please follow this link.
I am not sure what NAT testing is but in the UK they will do an ELISA test which is the same as you would get at any clinic, and a PCR test which looks for the virus itself. If you read this factsheet you will see that the PCR test alone is not always accurate and that the test you get in the clinic (the ELISA test) is very accurate. It doesn’t matter if you test when you give blood or in a clinic as the tests are the same.
When you donate blood, they make NAT testing, they are looking for the virus also, not just antibodies.