On 2026-07-18 08:57:49 Vrik said:
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All well, but what about the window period before positive results may show up?
Very glad you brought that up because it's surprising that AIDS has been around since before most of us where born and still so many people are unaware of how it all works.
The window period is the period the virus needs to build up a high enough viral load to be detected by these tests and to be transmissible. Basically those same tests, test for viral load and that viral load has to be high enough to be detected and to be transmissible. If the viral load isn't high enough to give a positive result, it also isn't high enough to be transmissible so a negative result at the time is actually still valid and safe at the time.
Let's say person (A) raw dogged it with person (C) that has it yesterday or last week or 3 months ago and does a test today and it's negative. They are unlikely to pass it in to someone (B) today as they don't have a high enough transmissible load to do so. Now let's say the one (A) that did raw 3 months ago contracted it and in 3 months time (6 months in total) tests positive, the other person (B) they did it today with person (A) won't have gotten it and will still test negative in their 6 month checkup because person (A) was not infectious when the raw dogged person (B) today.
Hope that helps shed some light.
JP69