Herpes testing questions

[seabee]

Hi! I asked a potential future partner to get some herpes testing done before we have sex. His doctor convinced him not to because of false positives + stigma, etc. My questions:

1) We ordered the Western Blot at home test but according to my research, the Elisa HerpesSelect test is 96%+ sensitive and 97%+ specific? Surely that can’t be right — do you have a link to the most recent research? I guess I am more concerned about a false negative than a false positive.

2) Is 6 weeks since his last sexual encounter (partner unknown status) enough time to wait? No symptoms. They had sex with a condom twice and oral sex.

Thank you!

[Terri Warren]

there is no western blot at home test. Are you thinking of an immunoblot? Or you may have been able to order the western blot kit from the University of Washington but you still need a provider to order it for you. I’m not sure exactly what you mean here.

For the real western blot, the UW recommends that you wait 12 weeks from any concerning encounter to do the test.

The statistics you are reading are a study comparing people who are swab test positive for HSV 2 and also do this antibody test. But when the population changes to those who are simply testing for HSV 2 and have no symptoms, the statistics turn out to be very different.

Here is the paper for that reference:

Sex Transm Disease, 2017 Dec;44(12):763-767.

Performance of Commercial Enzyme-Linked Immunoassays for Diagnosis of Herpes Simplex Virus-1 and Herpes Simplex Virus-2 Infection in a Clinical Setting
Elfriede Agyemang 1 , Quynh-An Le, Terri Warren, Amalia S Magaret, Stacy Selke, Christine Johnston, Keith R Jerome, Anna Wald

Terri

[seabee]

Hi Terri, thank you for your response. I was indeed referring to the UW test kit, yes, not some other take home test.

The study you shared refers to EIA tests, however I’m referencing the HerpesSelect test specifically which I don’t see referenced in the paper above. In Table 1 in the paper entitled “Screening for Genital Herpes Simplex:
Brief Update for the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force” it doesn’t seem that they’re looking at the test results for people who already are symptomatic. Would you be able to provide the false negative/positive rate for the HerpesSelect in an asymptomatic individual? THANK YOU so much!

[Terri Warren]

EIA tests are the IgG tests you are referring to – there are several brands and HerpeSelect is just one of them – it is a brand name.
The study I referenced is looking at people who are asymptomatic and presented for STI screening, not because they necessarily had symptoms.

Again, there absolutely is no at home test using the herpes western blot. it is done only at the lab at the University of Washington. The kit for the test can be shipped to an individual’s home but from there, it must be taken to a lab for a blood draw and the blood sent back to UW for processing with the blot.

There is clearly some confusion here.

Terri

[Author]

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