{"id":7045,"date":"2012-06-28T12:07:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T12:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/?p=7045"},"modified":"2012-11-01T14:19:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T14:19:48","slug":"what-does-a-cd4-count-of-26-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/7045","title":{"rendered":"What does a CD4 count of 26 mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am sorry about your recent diagnosis. How are you coping? Has your doctor put you in touch with support groups for people living with HIV? Talking through how you feel with people who understand can be really helpful.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s good that you\u2019ve been diagnosed now. You have\u00a0 been caught just at the right time. This is because a CD4 count of 26 means your immune system is weak. You are very lucky, therefore, that your were diagnosed before you got ill.<\/p>\n<p>I can appreciate your confusion as your doctor wasn\u2019t very helpful in explaining your results.\u00a0 However, he has \u00a0given you good advice about starting treatment. \u00a0The WHO (World Health Organisation) treatment guidelines recommend starting with a CD4 count of 350 or below. It\u2019s important, therefore, that you start treatment as advised.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is, once you start treatment, your CD4 count will start to increase. This could take a while as you are starting with a low CD4 count. Don\u2019t worry if this\u00a0 happens as it is not uncommon. Please follow this <a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/starting\/cd4-increase\"> link to our guide which  explains \u00a0how CD4 counts increase once you start treatment.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In response to your second question, CD4 tests measure your immune system. (In addition to CD4 count, CD4% is a second test for measuring your immune system).<\/p>\n<p>Our <a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/starting\/cd4-count-and-guidelines\">guide to An introduction to combination therapy \u00a0has more information about \u00a0CD4 tests.<\/a> The guide also answers a lot of general questions you may have around treatment.<\/p>\n<p>You may find that you still have some more questions after you read the guide. If you do, then please feel free to contact me on the email below.<\/p>\n<p>Angelina.namiba@i-base.org.uk<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0 the meantime, you can also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tac.org.za\/community\/contact\">contact TAC (Treatment Action Campaign)<\/a>. TAC are based in South Africa.\u00a0 They will be able to put in touch with support groups near you. They can also support you around understanding your test results and communicating with your doctor.<\/p>\n<p>Best wishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I tested HIV positive 3 weeks ago. When I asked the Doctor how is my CD4, all he said reluctantly is 26. He then said I must start therapy as this is very low and he prescribed  Trimmune and Purbac.<\/p>\n<p>I am a bit confused as to what does this  26 means.  Is it a CD4 percentage or what? How do labs indicate the CD4 count on their reports, in percentages? I could not understand the lab report as it was written in Afrikaans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,28,49,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-newly-diagnosed","category-south-africa","category-starting-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}