Peter Shalit, M.D.Internal Medicine
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date. Sir/madam,
My question is on behalf of a Chinese medical doctor friend practicing in Africa who has been treating AIDS with Traditional Chinese Medicines. His work indicates that some of his patients who tested HIV positive with viral load counts, etc., are now HIV negative. These patients repeatedly now test negative. His question is: Is there any test that would indicate that the patient did in the past have the HIV virus?
Thank you very much for your assistance to me and all of your important work.
Peter Shalit, M.D.
Internal Medicine
In the unlikely circumstance that a person becomes cured of HIV infection, it seems to me that an HIV Western Blot test (an antibody test that looks for a number of antibodies against HIV) should remain positive, or at least "indeterminate". As is the case with other viral infections, the antibodies should linger, at least some of them, even after the virus is gone. If the person has a negative RNA test and no HIV antibodies, I would question whether she or he was ever infected with HIV.
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