Can someone test false positive for HIV in the window? How often does a false po!

Can someone test false positive for HIV in the window? How often does a false positive occur?!?

They said the initial test, Elisa tested positive twice for antibodies--- and it is tested twice due to the extreme sensitivty of the test then i was confirmed by a western blot which turned out to be negative? explanation???

Elisa has a 3-10% probability of a false positive. The Western blot is considered the best test but even it relies on the judgement of the test reader looking at the bands or rather looking for the bands.

So it is possible that you got two false positives on teh Elisa, but is also possible that you are positive and the person misread the Western blot test. As a measure of safety, and since you already have two positives, I would suggest another Western blot in 1 to 2 months and suggest it be done by a different lab.

The real question is why you are worried, are in a high risk group? If so then most certainly get recheck later. If your not in a high risk group then don't worry too much now but still get rechecked later.

Its difficult to quantify what a false negative probability is for any test as it is always possible that the evidence of infection your looking for aren't in a great enough concentration within your body to show up.

Sort of like testing for pregnancy each day after you had sex. Even though you conceived you wont show up on some test until you have actually been pregnant for some time. Does that mean that your pregnancy tests were false negatives? No it simply means that the chemical marker you were looking for wasn't picked up even though it was there.