Question

What is the window phase of an infection? How is this concept important for testing for HIV infection in blood banks?

Answer 1

The INITIAL immune reaction of the body dealing with any contamination isn't always immediately. The window phase is the duration from the contamination till the formation of detectable specific antibodies against the infectious agent. at some stage in this era, immunochemical checks that not directly look for infections, inclusive of the ELISA and the Western-blot for HIV, provide a bad end result even if the character is honestly infected by way of the agent. within the case of HIV, the window section can closing approximately 2 weeks to a few months.

The window phase is a huge problem for blood banks that simplest perform immunochemical checks on the donated blood. that is the reason why, in a few international locations, blood donors are submitted to a sequence of questions concerning their earlier conduct, specifically sexual and drug use related, inside the months preceding the donation and additionally to voluntary confidential self-exclusion, in which they declare whether their blood may be used or should be excluded. as opposed to going through this dangerous trouble, present day blood banks use PCR (polymerase chain reaction) for HIV, a test that isn't distorted through the window section because it isn't antibody-based totally. the usage of unique primers, PCR detects the presence of DNA generated by the opposite transcription of HIV RNA