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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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06089923.000
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1992-09-22
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THE WEEK, Page 31HEALTH & SCIENCETen-Minute AIDS Test
A new FDA-approved assay cuts out the agony of waiting for an
answer
For those who fear they may be infected with HIV-1, the virus
that causes AIDS, the wait between taking a blood test and
getting the results can be agonizing. The tests must be
processed in a laboratory, and it can take days for a patient
to find out if the deadly virus is spreading through his or her
body. Last week, though, the FDA approved a new HIV test that
gives results in just 10 minutes. It can be run in a doctor's
office by someone with minimal training. All it takes is two
test tubes, some chemicals, a medicine dropper and a blood
sample (all but the last come packaged in a kit). If the
solution turns blue, the blood has antibodies to HIV and thus
has the virus as well. The test is more than 99% accurate, but
for absolute certainty, a positive result has to be confirmed
by a more elaborate lab test. That's also the case with
conventional HIV exams -- as is the advice to be retested in six
months: it can take that long after infection for antibodies to
appear.