HIV test after an accidental puncture

Dear Ask The Doctor: My boyfriend got pricked with an old syringe whilst cleaning leaves from the drain outside his house. He recently had his 3 month test to detect HIV or Hepatitis and those results all came back negative. How much longer do we have to wait to have unprotected sex again?

Dear Victoria:It is good news that the test came back negative after 3 months, then the chance to have been infected is extremely low, but if you are still concerned you can get a confirmatory test: Western blot or wait until 6 months and repeat the test, just to be completely sure about to have unprotected sex again. The period of time you should wait before taking an HIV test will depend on the type of test that you are taking. In the majority of cases, the standard test that will be offered at an HIV testing center will be an HIV antibody Test. The HIV antibody Test detects antibodies to the virus in your blood. For most of the people these antibodies take 6 weeks to 3 months to develop, sometimes, in very rare cases, may take up to 6 months. For this reason, getting tested before 3 months have passed may result in an unclear test result, as the infected person may not yet have developed antibodies to HIV. These 3 – 6 months are known as the 'window period'.