[remontado]

MEDICAL questions:
1. How does/would post-traumatic osteoarthritis (not rheumatoid) effect evaluation (suitability for residency)?
2. Would having antibodies to numerous infectious diseases (mainly indigenous to Africa) be a negative or a positive factor?
(I have [u]not[/u[ had yellow fever, Dengue, Malaria, etc. and no current/chronic residual conditions - but I do have antibodies to some relatively 'rare' organisms).
3. I assume that an HIV-AIDS test is required. I was tested about 4 years ago, so would this suffice and how recent does the test need be? As I recall, definitive results take several months to be returned (4-5 months in my case).

Thank you in advance for any informed responses.

[Hannah]

Hi Remontado,
I wouldn't have thought antibodies to these diseases would be a problem. Having lived in a country where certain diseases are present it is part of the bodies natural response to contact with such organisms to develop antibodies, and this doesn't always mean you have had the disease (and even if you have, you don't have it now and you sure won't get it again!) . my partner had evidence of old healed TB - he was told he probably had never had it (he knew that!!) but that he had contact with a small amount of the TB organism at some point and his body had reacted by forming antibodies evident in small tiny scars on his lung (where he had come into contact with the organism). It was not a problem with our application as this is quite common apparently (despite having lived in UK, which doesn't have big TB problem).
As for HIV test, you will need to have this with your medical and the medical must be less than 3 months old at the time you submit so you cannot use the test from 4 yrs ago. I guess the argument of the NZIS is even if you didn't have it 4 yrs ago you could have it now.

As for the arthritis question, sorry can't help. I guess it will depend on how it affects your ability to work, how much treatment you need etc. and whether they consider this to be an unacceptable burden on the health service.

hope this helps, and good luck!

hannah

[bob_the_engineer]

Hi Remontado,

An honest answer to your questions would be “I don’t know”

But I can tell you what I think, and hopefully it will be of some use.

1/ post-traumatic osteoarthritis, as I understand it results from an injury. If this doesn’t effect your ability to work then I don’t think it would be a problem. Would I be right in thinking it’d treated with an anti-inflammatory.

2/ antibodies, again I’m not sure here but I think this is disease dependent. Some diseases are robust and an antibody is proof of continuing infection, while other antibodies simply show a history of exposure.

3/ HIV, one thing I can say with all certainty is a 4 year old HIV test won’t be good enough. I think that when testing for HIV exposure the test is repeated because it takes a long time for the virus to become visible (I think this is one of those diseases where the test is looking for antibodies as an indication of infection, rather than past exposure).
My understanding is that if you are concerned that you have been exposed to this virus then you test and test again several weeks later, I think the delayed test is looking for recent exposure).

Hope that’s helpful Bob