Why is primary HIV infection missed?
Primary HIV infection is symptomatic in most individuals but is easy to miss.3 4 In a cohort study of 46 patients with primary HIV infection, only a quarter of those with acute presentations caused by primary HIV infection were correctly diagnosed in various acute and primary care settings in the United States.5 The diagnosis of primary HIV infection was also missed at initial presentation in 19 of 40 patients (48%) in the United Kingdom.3 The infection may be missed because the symptoms are transient, often lasting less than two weeks, and tend to overlap with those of infections that are much more common in clinical practice.
