Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.I had unprotected sex with girl from West Africa 7 months ago. Tested negative for all bacterial std's and HBV, HCV and HIV 1/2 after 1, 3 and 6 months. Still I have many HIV-like symptoms including: Folliculitis in the face, constant upper right abdominal pain, diarrhea/high bowel sounds, constant itching in my legs, "floaters" in visual field and recurrent moderate swelling of parotid/ear glands. Recently had an outbreak of shingles and "sweat"-epiodes at night. I have had these problems since some weeks after the exposure until now and it does not go away. Very sure that I got some kind of disease from this girl. Frustrated that it apparently does not show up on the tests I have taken. The HIV-tests in Norway do not test for HIV-1 type O. How and where is it possible to test for this strain? Are there other tests to consider? I would be very thankful for your answer as I'm desperate for a diagnosis.
You are right, the standard HIV ELISA tests find HIV -1 and HIV - 2 group M, but not group O, antibodies. Therefore you need to use a test to find the HIV RNA to rule out group O HIV. For this you can should get HIV RNA test by branch chain DNA (bDNA) assay. The HIV RNA by PCR is not as good.
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