The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency is
collaborating with UCSD’s Antiviral Research Center to offer free and
confidential HIV testing to people who may have recently been infected with the
virus.
The Early Test Program provides a new test method that
checks for the presence of the HIV virus, which can be detected within a week
of infection. A regular HIV test, in
contrast, looks for antibodies in the blood, which can take three months or
longer to detect.
“This is especially important because newly infected
individuals have a very high viral load,” said Susan Little, an associate
professor of medicine in UCSD’s division of infectious diseases, in a press
release.
