It might be helpful to understand....... AIDS is a condition that develops when your immune system has become very badly damaged by the HIV virus and can no longer fight off infections. Nowadays, because treatments are so good, it is very unusual for someone with HIV to go on to develop AIDS. The only way to find out if you have HIV is to test and the earlier HIV is diagnosed and then treated, the better it is. This is why we say 'HIV is just 3 letters, it's not a sentence' because antiretroviral drugs (ART) have made HIV a manageable long term condition. Hope this helps

Unfortunately there is no straight, simple answer. The test can only detect the presence of antibodies to HIV, not how far the infection may have affected a person's underlying health. So the test cannot tell whether an infection has progressed to a stage that would be classified as AIDS. If someone did a test and it was negative, it would be very unlikely that the person had HIV (and, therefore, very unlikely that they had developed AIDS. There is almost always a relatively long time between infection and the development of AIDS). If the person performed a test and the result was positive, firstly, they should contact a healthcare professional for confirmation and then access the excellent care that we have for dealing with HIV in the UK, through the NHS. If detected in the early stages of infection, treatment is incredibly effective. But in both cases if someone remained concerned our advice would be to contact a healthcare professional.

If you have already developed AIDS, will there be a positive indication?