It is ordered by clinician for the HIV infected individual in following cases to :
The term “viral load” refers to the amount of HIV in a sample of your blood. When your viral load is high, you have more HIV in your body, and that means your immune system is not fighting HIV as well. A viral load test helps provide information on your health status and how well antiretroviral therapy (ART - treatment with HIV medicines) is controlling the virus.
It is usually expressed as the copies/ml and its relative increase or decrease provide valuable information regarding the efficacy of Anti-retroviral treatment and it also provide overall health status of the HIV positive patient .
A low viral load of 40 to 500 copies/ ml signifies good therapeutic index. It signifies that HIV is not actively replicating and the disease progression is slow.
Not applicable
CD4 Count-provide prognostic information about health status of patient. (Link CD4 COUNT )
HIV Genotyping - provide information regarding the resistance developed in patient of HIV hence it help clinician to provide better Anti-retroviral treatment to patient. (link HIV Genotyping)
