Hello There have been a few questions regarding ‘stickiness of antibodies’ and false negatives. Becky has been reassuring in her answers that this is just a term used to explain how antibodies attach to proteins and could not cause false negatives but below is a post where Gary seems to suggest they do .

Could you please clarify his response.

I have taken 2 Biosure tests, well outside the window period (years in fact), both negative but this has been playing on my mind.

Here is Gary’s post in that thread:- ………. Hi BigQ I hope that I can help to clarify. There are a number of reasons why someone might get a false negative test result. The BioSURE HIV Self Test detects a person’s antibodies rather than the virus itself. One of the most likely causes of a false negative is that the person has produced a low level of antibodies when tested. This itself can be caused by a number of things: taking PEP or PrEP can delay antibody creation or the person maybe in the early stages of antibody creation, for example. Another possible cause is the “stickiness” of a person’s antibodies. Whilst all antibodies are similar the antibodies produced slightly different between people. Rapid tests are generally just not as accurate as large, laboratory instruments. Unfortunately few diagnostics are perfect. The BioSURE HIV Self Test has been developed and tested to ensure that it is very accurate. I hope that this helps to answer your question. Kind regards Gary Carpenter BioSure (UK) Limited