Question

A 32-year-old male repeat blood donor is found to be positive for HIV through nucleic acid testing, but he has been test-negative for HIV ½ antibodies and for HIV p24 antigen on several prior donations. Before all testing is completed, he returns to the blood collection center to donate HLA-matched platelets. At registration, the staff person notices that his prior record indicates his deferral status. She informs the donor that he is not eligible to donate the platelets. The donor is shocked and embarrassed by the news and storms out of the center. Two weeks later, the donor sues the blood center for intentional infliction of emotional stress.

Is the donor likely to be successful?

Answer 1

HIV 1/2 antibodies and HIV p24 antigen tests offers the advantage of simplicity and cost effectiveness, but is less than perfect. p24 is a major protein that is part of HIV, p24 is detected 2-3 weeks after infection before antibodies are produced- but not really afterwards. This test detects the antigen (p24), but after 28 days the p24 starts to disappear and the test will only detect antibodies, so if you havent produced antibodies yet and p24 has already disappeared, the results will be false negative, moreover with any antibody test, a small percentage of people may have delayed response to HIV so people using these test four weeks after exposure are recommended to confirm a negative result 3 months later. In contrast nucleic acid testing looks for HIV directly and can detect the presence much earlier than the antibody test, because of these reasons the donor more likely to be unsucessful in his attemt to sue the blood center.