And there are some conditions that we aren't aware of yet which may be documented in the future to cause false-positives. But remember, a WB is positive by virtue of accumulating enough individual positive bands to add up to the total required by whatever criteria is used to interpret it 39 . So the more exposure a person has had to foreign antigens, proteins and infectious agents, the more various antibodies he or she will have in their system, and the more likely it is that there will be several cross-reacting antibodies, enough to make the WB positive. Andrade V, Avelleira JC, Marques A, et al. 1991. Arnold NL, Slade RA, Jones MM, et al.
Donor follow up of influenza vaccine-related multiple viral enzyme immunoassay reactivity.
Ascher D, Roberts C. 1993. Determination of the etiology of seroreversals in HIV testing by antibody fingerprinting. Barbacid M, Bolgnesi D, Aaronson S. 1980. Biggar R, Melbye M, Sarin P, et al. Blanton M, Balakrishnan K, Dumaswala U, et al.