Rapid Oral HIV Test
Medical Author:
Steven Fine, MD, PhD
Medical Editor:
Mary Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP
Mary Nettleman, MD, MS, MACPMary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Michigan State University. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt Medical School, and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Indiana University.
Rapid Oral HIV Test IntroductionThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends that all people between the ages of 13 and 64 get tested for HIV regardless of risk. Getting tested for HIV is now easier. In October 2004, OraSure Technologies, Inc., announced that it had FDA approval for a rapid HIV test that can detect antibodies to both HIV-1 and HIV type 2 (HIV-2). This is called the OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test. It can provide results in 20 minutes using oral fluid, a finger-stick sample of blood, or plasma. |
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Rapid Oral HIV Test
HIV Testing Introduction
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). HIV destroys the body’s immune system and leads to AIDS. People with AIDS develop many diseases and “opportunistic” infections (such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, cancer, and skin infections) that ultimately lead to death. There is no cure for HIV/AIDS. Prevention is critical. If you have been exposed to the HIV virus in any number of ways, you can be tested to see if you have the HIV antibodies.
- How HIV is transmitted
- The HIV virus can be transmitted by unprotected sexual contact (vaginal, anal, or oral sex), sharing needles, transfused blood products, mother to newborn (30% risk), and occupational needlestick exposures. From the minute the HIV enters the body, the virus begins replicating at a rate of 10 billion new specimens per day.
- Some 90% of all new HIV in...
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HIV Infection »
Over the past25 years sincethe first cases of what we now recognize as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection were identified in 1981, the number of children infected with HIV has increased dramatically in developing countries because ofthe number of HIV-infected women of childbearing age has risen.
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