hey jaz,
yeah, the deal is, at least in the US, is they see if you have the virus present-period. not antibodies, but the HCV RNA itself-qualitative.
if thats undetected or negative, thats it.
if its positve-detected-then a quantitative is done. this seems to be the "failure to communicate" area, as i have referred to earlier. if they can't find enough virus to measure, its usually shown as below their testing capability threshold, like <15 or <12. my PCP's nurse kept telling me it was "unmeasurable" by email. when I saw the actual test, she was right. there wasn't enough virus to measure. the 8 week test was negative. undetected. she still told me the same thing when she informed me by email: "good news, your virus is unmeasurable".
trying times.....
m