Can an HIV-positive person test negative?
DOCTORS have advised that Twaha Waliggo needs to take further confirmatory tests. Dr Emmanuel Luyirika, the director of Clinical Services at Mildmay Centre, recommended the Uganda Virus Research Institute.
By Vision Reporter
DOCTORS have advised that Twaha Waliggo needs to take further confirmatory tests. Dr Emmanuel Luyirika, the director of Clinical Services at Mildmay Centre, recommended the Uganda Virus Research Institute.
There Waliggo’s blood can be subjected to various diagnostic methods like viral load, p24 antigen and culture techniques.
Dr. Herbert Mugarura of Middle East Hospital, Bugolobi, said there are cases when one test cannot be conclusive.
He referred to a two-year study (from 1996 to 1998) at the University of Washington, US, which proved that some people with an HIV infection may remain negative on HIV antibody tests.
“Scientists found HIV lurking in the resting T cells of some people who remain HIV seronegative and continued to test negative for HIV despite repeated high-risk sexual activity,†he said.
This means there are individuals who test negative but in reality have HIV and can infect others, Mugarura said.
However, Luyirika insisted that while they may be there, they are few.
“It is actually possible that Waliggo is negative,†he said.
“We have seen many people who have lost partners to HIV and are negative. There is a Hajji whose three wives died of AIDS and he is negative. The percentage of discordance (sexual partners who have different HIV statuses) is as high as 45% in some areas,†Luyirika said.
Dr Paul Ssemugoma added that there are cases of actual resistance to HIV.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, scientists were intrigued by a group of sex workers (prostitutes) in Nairobi who had had frequent unprotected sex with many partners, but some remained negative,†he says. â€Out of more than 400 sex workers who were followed for years, there was a small number who remained HIV-negative when they were doing the same sex work, in the same way,†he said.
“This observation was later made in the Gambia and Thailand. The current view is that somehow, they get resistance to the virus because of the very high exposure to it. In fact, when some of these women decreased their sex work for a short time and then resumed, they started becoming HIV-positive.â€
Ssemugoma explained that genes can make this possible. “Viruses cannot live outside the cells of another living thing.
To enter our cells, HIV uses certain molecules on our cells as doorways. But some people do not have these doors.†Ssemugoma warns that people with this condition are very few.
Luyirika said cases of HIV-positive people turning negative have been reported but are isolated.
DOCTORS have advised that Twaha Waliggo needs to take further confirmatory tests. Dr Emmanuel Luyirika, the director of Clinical Services at Mildmay Centre, recommended the Uganda Virus Research Institute.
There Waliggo’s blood can be subjected to various diagnostic methods like viral load, p24 antigen and culture techniques.
Dr. Herbert Mugarura of Middle East Hospital, Bugolobi, said there are cases when one test cannot be conclusive.
He referred to a two-year study (from 1996 to 1998) at the University of Washington, US, which proved that some people with an HIV infection may remain negative on HIV antibody tests.
“Scientists found HIV lurking in the resting T cells of some people who remain HIV seronegative and continued to test negative for HIV despite repeated high-risk sexual activity,†he said.
This means there are individuals who test negative but in reality have HIV and can infect others, Mugarura said.
However, Luyirika insisted that while they may be there, they are few.
“It is actually possible that Waliggo is negative,†he said.
“We have seen many people who have lost partners to HIV and are negative. There is a Hajji whose three wives died of AIDS and he is negative. The percentage of discordance (sexual partners who have different HIV statuses) is as high as 45% in some areas,†Luyirika said.
Dr Paul Ssemugoma added that there are cases of actual resistance to HIV.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, scientists were intrigued by a group of sex workers (prostitutes) in Nairobi who had had frequent unprotected sex with many partners, but some remained negative,†he says. â€Out of more than 400 sex workers who were followed for years, there was a small number who remained HIV-negative when they were doing the same sex work, in the same way,†he said.
“This observation was later made in the Gambia and Thailand. The current view is that somehow, they get resistance to the virus because of the very high exposure to it. In fact, when some of these women decreased their sex work for a short time and then resumed, they started becoming HIV-positive.â€
Ssemugoma explained that genes can make this possible. “Viruses cannot live outside the cells of another living thing.
To enter our cells, HIV uses certain molecules on our cells as doorways. But some people do not have these doors.†Ssemugoma warns that people with this condition are very few.
Luyirika said cases of HIV-positive people turning negative have been reported but are isolated.