An uptick in the average viral load throughout entire communities could indicate an epidemic on the rise. A positive result at a low cycle threshold, or Ct, implies a high viral load in the patient. Viral load measurements for HIV are highly precise, because they are based on blood samples. Most manufacturers conservatively set their machine’s thresholds for diagnosis from 35 to 40, values that generally correspond to an extremely low viral load. Overall, he and others said, viral load information is too valuable a metric to be ignored or discarded without analysis.

Source: bd News24 December 29, 2020 14:03 UTC