What is the purpose of HIV antibody testing?

Considerable attention, both in the scientific literature and in the popular media, has focused recently on the accuracy of tests for HIV antibodies. Many have pointed to the dangers of falsely identifying persons as being infected, and they have stressed that the predictive power of a positive test result may be small in populations with a low prevalence of HIV infection. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the current testing/counseling protocols, which are designed to increase specificity at the expense of sensitivity, are inappropriate in high-prevalence groups.