Question
What do my viral load test results mean?
5 January 2016. Related: All topics, CD4 and viral load.
Please can you explain how viral load results mean?
I got my results back and I don’t understand them. It says log units is 2.777 and my RNA copies is 599 cp/mL.
Is this low or high? My CD4 count is 697.
Answer
Hi
Thanks for your question – and it is good that you want to understand your test results.
Sometimes this can be dfficult if your doctor has not explained them clearly. It is also okay to ask your doctor or nurse to explain anything that you are not sure of.
Viral loads tests tells you how much virus is in a millilitre of blood (or another body fluid being measured).
When not on treatment, viral load can range from undetectable to several millions. For anyone on HIV treatment (ART), viral load should ideally get to undetectable, This is defined as being less than 50 copies/mL.
Your test results are the 599 copies/mL, so your viral load is still detectable at 599.
The ‘2.777 log units’ from your test results is a slightly complicated way of saying exactly the same thing as ‘599 copies/mL’.
Because viral loads have such a huge range of numbers they are sometimes expressed in ‘log units’ to make it easier to write them on graphs and diagrams. Doctors and scientists use log scales to look at changes to viral loads over time. See this table of log units compared to viral loads in copies/mL.
Whether this is considered high or low depends on whether or not you are on treatment.
- If you’re not on treatment yet this is a relatively low viral load, which is a good thing.
- If you are on treatment, then if you only recently started ART, your viral load might still be going down.
- If you have been on treatment for more than six month, please talk to your doctor about why the results in not undetectable.
For more information about viral loads and how they relate to both treatment and infectiousness you can also have a look at the following links:
Viral Load and Treatment
Viral Load and Infectiousness
If you tell me if you are currently on treatment or not I can provide more individual information, Also, if you are on treatment, when did you start?
This answer was updated in January 2016 from a question first posted on 5 April 2012.
Hi Sophia,
Yes it is. If you have a viral load that is non detected this means your HIV is under control.
Is it possible to have a viral load result written not detected cp/ml
Hi Neecy,
Thanks, your comment has been answered here: https://i-base.info/qa/7496
Hi I’m Neecy. I was diagnosed with Hiv in 2009. And am currently on ART went for my checkup in April this year and my tests show that it’s lower than the undetectable amount. Can I still infect my partner if it’s undetectable.
Hi Joshi,
Please see this page for the window periods.
on 12th week i did 4th generation test which is non reactive but my pcr rna test is saying log value below 1.30 ie less than 20 copies so i am bit confused what is my hiv status ??
Hi Loveness,
What did your doctor say? It doesn’t look like a viral load result. Please find out more about this result, and let us know.
Hi my blood results says
Input volume is 0.600 ml
So what does this mean?
And what are the chances that my partner won’t be HIV positive in case a condom breaks?
Hi Rob,
What did the doctor say when they gave you this result?
Viral load is the amount of HIV in a sample of blood. The result is usually given as copies per millilitre (mL) of blood. The most widely used viral load test looks for HIV RNA.
Viral load tests have a lower cut off figure such as 50 or 20 copies/mL. Any HIV RNA less than this can not be detected.
Because results can be very wide from 20 copies to millions of copies, they are sometimes shown as Log values. This result would be Log 3.1.
What HIV treatment (ART) are you taking? The aim of ART is to reduce viral load to undetectable. And that is less than 50 copies/mL.
Please let us know.
This is a new testing for me never saw it this way before.
HIV-RNA Viral Load 1370 copy/mL
Linearity is 20 copies/ml to 5,000,000 copies/ml what do this mean? oh also it says this HIV-RNA VIRAL LOAD-LOG 10