Hi every body

I have a friend who has been given HIV "borderline positive" twice by Abbott's MEIA technique, once three years ago when he went to donate blood and then last week. After both tests for the sake of confirmation he tried ELISA from other manufacturers and even Immunochromatography from Abbott (determine) and he is negative on all accounts. He has no such history. He is as strong and healthy as three years ago. his blood profile and other routine biochemical parameters are normal. He once had herpes viral infection several years ago.
My question is that Is possible to get false positives by MEIA technique? If there is some interference then what it could be? three years ago PCR test was also negative.
Thanks Farrukh

I would guess that your friend has a high titre of antibodies- where I work we deal with normal and some disease state plasma donors. Right now we are wrestling with a donor that is coming up indeterminate by the HIV assay used. this particlular donor has high titre of antibodies to phospholipids complexed with proteins.
You cna go to the Abbott web site and see illustrations of how the assays work, as well as get product inserts www.abbottdiagnostics.com

Hi,

A HIV result by ELISA has to be confirmed by western blot. If the wb is negative, the result is officially negative. Some studies have reported false positive results after immunization against influenza in some patients tested for HIV by ELISA . This type of false reactions are temporary only. Your final answer is in the western blot.