Question
My partner’s viral load has increased slightly. Should I be worried?
21 February 2012. Related: All topics, CD4 and viral load.
Hi there,
I wonder if you could answer a general question. My partner has been on treatment for over two years and undetectable for over a year.
He had a viral load of 54 over a month ago so they re-tested and it came back at 64 copies/mL.
Should we be worried, or is a double blip; Is this reasonably common?
They have called him back for further testing next week. Any thoughts or info would be greatly appreciated….many thanks in advance.
Answer
I can understand that you are concerned about your partner’s slight increase in his viral load recently.
There could be a number of reasons why this can happened. Firstly, it could be a blip – lab or mix up error. Since the results only increased slightly, then it is not clinically significant and there is nothing to worry about – unless when it increases to above 200.
The other possible reason for this change would be if your partner has been taking new medication (either HIV or non HIV meds). If he has, then there could be drug interaction between the drugs taken.
With these results being so close to 50 which is the cut off for the test, the clinic is giving good information to retest without changing treatment. It would be a shame to change an otherwise effective treatment if this isn’t really treatment failure but just test variability.
Please look at the link below for more information on blips.
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