Do I need to take more than one HIV test for an accurate result?

Do I need to take more than one HIV test for an accurate result?

Charles Farthing (Chief of Medicine, AIDS Healthcare Foundation) gives expert video advice on: What are the symptoms of HIV?; Where can I be tested for HIV?; Is there a home test kit for HIV? and more...

It's usual with HIV and antibody testing to do an initial screen with an ELISA antibody test, but that can have some false positives. So, that test is usually confirmed by a separate test which in the United States is usually a Western Blot antibody test. This test look more specifically not just at antibodies to the virus but looks at several different proteins in the virus to see if you have antibodies to several different proteins and if that test is positive, then you're pretty sure it's not crossed reactivity to something else with would could leave to false positive test.