Any positive HIV test outcome is retested through blood samples to verify its accuracy, and the department said anyone getting tested was informed of that. The decision to switch was made late last month for operational efficiency reasons, the department said, because any decline in a test's accuracy forces more steps to determine the real result.
City health officials, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and OraSure Technologies, the maker of the test, are investigating to figure out what caused the uptick.