Diagnosis of HIV/AIDS
immunological test
HIV tests are used to detect the presence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that can lead to AIDS, in serum, saliva, or urine. Such tests may detect antibodies, antigens, or RNA.
AIDS diagnosis
AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. It is a clinical condition characterized by severe immunosuppression that can occur when HIV is untreated. A person with HIV is diagnosed with AIDS when their CD4+ T cell count falls below 200 cells per μL or they develop an AIDS-defining clinical condition.
Terminology
The eclipse period is a variable period starting from HIV exposure in which no existing test can detect HIV. The median duration of the eclipse period in one study was 11.5 days. The window period is the time between HIV exposure and when an antibody or antigen test can detect HIV. The median window period for antibody/antigen testing is 18 days. Nucleic acid testing (NAT) further reduces this period to 11.5 days.
Performance of medical tests is often described in terms of:
Sensitivity: The percentage of the results that will be positive when HIV is present
Specificity: The percentage of the results that will be negative when HIV is not present.
All diagnostic tests have limitations, and sometimes their use may produce erroneous or questionable results.
False positive: The test incorrectly indicates that HIV is present in a non-infected person.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Diagnosis of HIV/AIDS” as immunological test. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as immunological test. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q337517. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Diagnosis of HIV/AIDS” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.