4800 West Green Brook Drive â¢ Brown Deer, WI 53223 â¢ 414.371.3000 â¢ manager@browndeerwi.org â¢ Office Hours: Monday through Friday 8:00am â 4:30pm Contact Us
In general, antibody tests that use blood can detect HIV slightly sooner after infection than tests done with oral fluid. It can take 3 to 12 weeks (21-84 days) for an HIV-positive personâs body to make enough antibodies for an antibody test to detect HIV infection. This is called the window period.
The time it takes for a person who has been infected with HIV to show a positive test result (also known as seroconverting) is commonly called the window period. There are different types of HIV Tests, and each type has a different window period. We have a more in depth article about HIV test window periods. A test taken at least 12 weeks (3 months) after exposure to the virus provides highly accurate results. In rare cases, a person could take up to six months to test positive using standard tests, and that is almost always a person with a severely compromised immune system due to another disease, such as leukemia.