alice8
Forum Guru
Topics: 37
Posts: 643
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Hi everyone,
For the patient who is newly diagnosed HIV positive ,who do we obligated to say/report this illness ,and who the patient obligated to tell his/her situation...
How often should we test them for cd4 count and viral load...
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| asmi
Forum Hero
Topics: 1043
Posts: 4,609
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I think obligatory to reveal it to his/her sexual partner.we should convince the pt to inform him/her and to bring him/her to hospital so that we can examine her too.
About reporting..just with 1 test we aren't sure ,so we can repeat ELISA/western blot ( to confirm it) ,may be after 6 weeks.
correct me if im wrong .
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| gballarino
Forum Senior
Topics: 12
Posts: 96
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Itīs illegal to inform to a different person other than the patient. You should try to convince the SP that is important that the partner be tested because if he is positive he might benefit from the treatment and he/she could serve as support as well.
Depending on the State where you practice you might be obligated by law to inform either HIV+ status or confirmed AIDS status to the appropriate governmental epidemiological surveillance entity. Anyway, I think that you report anonimous data, or you report a "patient code" instead fo his/her real name.
After a 1st postivie ELISA, you should repeat it immediatly, and after that second ELISA came out positive you should immediatly order a WB for confirmation. This is to rule out false positives.... would you like to wait 6 weeks for a confirmation test on a not-reliable positive result?
One you have the diagnosis is of no use to repeat ELISA or WB testing. You should order viral loads and CD4 count every 6 months and change conducts according to the current guidelines (I donīt remember now, but thereīs a specific cut off value to begin with antiretroviral therapy). You might want to recheck cd4 and viral load more often after a recent change in theraphy... I believe is 15 days after a change in therapy.
take care,
Guillermo.
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Guillermo Ballarino
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| gballarino
Forum Senior
Topics: 12
Posts: 96
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ok... i missed something.
You might want to order a second ELISA after 6 weeks if the first test was negative. Some times it takes longer than the usual 3 to 6 weeks to convert to positive.
I have seen cases of negative ELISA 8 weeks after exposure, with seroconversion by the 4th month post exposure.
However you donīt wait to order a confirmation test when you have a positive result.
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Guillermo Ballarino
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