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American Morning
New Rapid HIV Test Approved
Aired November 08, 2002 - 08:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there is a new test for the virus that causes AIDS. It is being called a milestone by one FDA official. The government panel yesterday gave its OK for the use of these tests. Why is this being hailed as such a breakthrough?
Here to tell us more, our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. It's called OraQuick, that is the name of the test, and it is a 20-minute test to find HIV antibodies in your blood. Takes 20 minutes, a single red dot means you don't have them, two red dots, two red lines means you do have them. Pretty amazing test. It is not the first time a test like this has come out, but a pretty remarkable test, and really a very need test as well, Daryn.
Of the 900,000 people or so people in this country that are HIV positive, about a quarter of them don't even know it, and those numbers are even more staggering, if you look at young black men who are having sex with other men and are HIV positive, 93 percent of them don't know it.
So, you can imagine where a test like this might be very helpful. There are also about 8,000 people who actually go to clinics every year who are HIV positive, they get tested, the test comes back HIV positive, but you know the problem is, they never go back and get the results. It takes about a week with some of the standard tests now, so a real problem.
OraQuick may change some of that, and there are some real benefits to that.
KAGAN: And so that means this way, it can all be done in one visit.
GUPTA: It can all be done in one visit, still has to be done at a hospital right now, but it could all be done in one visit.
KAGAN: So it is not like it is that next step, like a home pregnancy test, stuff for the doctor.
GUPTA: The one thing I should point out about this is that test itself is not a confirmatory test. It is going to give you a strong likelihood that you have HIV, so it is going to sort of separate the groups of people. It is going to tell people who absolutely don't have it, and tell people who might have it.
They still got to get another confirmatory test to be 100 percent sure, but it is 99.6 percent accurate.
KAGAN: But even with that negative test, since it takes some time to develop antibodies, just because you're negative doesn't mean you shouldn't come back.
TOOBIN: That is right, and that is an important point. This test is actually testing for the presence of antibodies. So if you actually get an exposure, it takes on average about 25 days to develop those antibodies -- can take as long as six months, so it's not the kind of test you want to get right after an exposure. You want to get it a few weeks later, maybe even a few months later for sure.
But you can imagine, they talk about pregnant women who are even in labor getting this particular test to try and prevent the transmission to their newborns, they talk about health care workers, trying to test the blood of someone who may have exposed them, to see if they were HIV positive. They talk about possible applications in the battlefield, amongst military personnel.
So, all kinds of possible uses for this test.
KAGAN: So an exciting development. Absolutely. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 8, 2002 - 08:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there is a new test for the virus that causes AIDS. It is being called a milestone by one FDA official. The government panel yesterday gave its OK for the use of these tests. Why is this being hailed as such a breakthrough?
Here to tell us more, our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. It's called OraQuick, that is the name of the test, and it is a 20-minute test to find HIV antibodies in your blood. Takes 20 minutes, a single red dot means you don't have them, two red dots, two red lines means you do have them. Pretty amazing test. It is not the first time a test like this has come out, but a pretty remarkable test, and really a very need test as well, Daryn.
Of the 900,000 people or so people in this country that are HIV positive, about a quarter of them don't even know it, and those numbers are even more staggering, if you look at young black men who are having sex with other men and are HIV positive, 93 percent of them don't know it.
So, you can imagine where a test like this might be very helpful. There are also about 8,000 people who actually go to clinics every year who are HIV positive, they get tested, the test comes back HIV positive, but you know the problem is, they never go back and get the results. It takes about a week with some of the standard tests now, so a real problem.
OraQuick may change some of that, and there are some real benefits to that.
KAGAN: And so that means this way, it can all be done in one visit.
GUPTA: It can all be done in one visit, still has to be done at a hospital right now, but it could all be done in one visit.
KAGAN: So it is not like it is that next step, like a home pregnancy test, stuff for the doctor.
GUPTA: The one thing I should point out about this is that test itself is not a confirmatory test. It is going to give you a strong likelihood that you have HIV, so it is going to sort of separate the groups of people. It is going to tell people who absolutely don't have it, and tell people who might have it.
They still got to get another confirmatory test to be 100 percent sure, but it is 99.6 percent accurate.
KAGAN: But even with that negative test, since it takes some time to develop antibodies, just because you're negative doesn't mean you shouldn't come back.
TOOBIN: That is right, and that is an important point. This test is actually testing for the presence of antibodies. So if you actually get an exposure, it takes on average about 25 days to develop those antibodies -- can take as long as six months, so it's not the kind of test you want to get right after an exposure. You want to get it a few weeks later, maybe even a few months later for sure.
But you can imagine, they talk about pregnant women who are even in labor getting this particular test to try and prevent the transmission to their newborns, they talk about health care workers, trying to test the blood of someone who may have exposed them, to see if they were HIV positive. They talk about possible applications in the battlefield, amongst military personnel.
So, all kinds of possible uses for this test.
KAGAN: So an exciting development. Absolutely. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
