HIV tests: safe, accurate – and now available at home

Home testing kits have been banned from sale in the UK since 1992. But from April 2014 they will be freely available and regulated by the NHS, after a change in the law.

Professor Brian Gazzard, who chairs the expert advisory committee on Aids said the old-style kits had been hard to use and the results “were neither sensitive, nor specific enough”, but scientific advances have made it possible to deliver accurate and specific tests for people to use at home.

At the moment around 100,000 people in Britain are living with HIV, and it is estimated that as many as one in four of them don’t know they are infected. It’s hoped that making tests much more accessible will encourage many of them to take control over their own health.

Health workers say that many people with the virus feel no effects at all, so it can take anything from two to five years for them to consider the very idea of testing – even though discovering infection late can reduce the effectiveness of any treatment.

However, levels of undiagnosed infection have been falling in recent years, especially among women who are routinely offered HIV tests during pregnancy.

It’s a way to reassure yourself and make sure you get the treatment which will save your life. Sir Nick Partridge, Terrence Higgins Trust

Deborah Jack from the National Aids Trust said many people who wanted to carry out the procedure themselves had been buying low quality kits illegally over the internet. “Legislation is an important step to ensure they are regulated, accurate and safe”, she said.

Until now, tests could be carried out at a variety of clinics across the country, or by sending a sample off to a lab and waiting to be sent the result. The Terrence Higgins Trust pioneered a home sampling kit, with the support of the Health Protection Agency, earlier this year.

Testing kits were posted out to high-risk people who had requested them via the Trust’s website: samples were then tested by lab technicians and negative results were sent back by text message.

Anyone who tested positive received a phone call telling them to make an appointment with a healthcare professional to get the result confirmed with a further blood test, as well as being offered support and counselling.

According to the Trust, people who tried out the kits welcomed the chance to take control over where and when the tests were carried out, and was especially helpful to those who were too nervous or reluctant to turn up at a clinic.

Taking control

The Trust’s chief executive, Sir Nick Partridge, told Channel 4 News it didn’t mean people should take the test on their own, without any kind of support: it was important to trust people to look after their health in a supportive, and responsible way, he said.

But he insisted that being able to test for the virus at home marked another milestone in the way society perceived the condition. “HIV tests have a long and difficult history”, he said.

“In the 80s and 90s, having a positive result was a potential death sentence. Now that is no longer true, thanks to the huge advances in science and the effectiveness of treatment.”

He said even a positive result was no longer the burden it once was. “A test which once damanged your ability to get insurance, mortgage, or employment really could save your life. It’s cheap, easy, and quick: a way to reassure yourself and make sure you get the treatment that will save your life.”

Cheap and easily available kits could provide another avenue help people in some of the world’s poorest countries get tested for HIV, alongside the network of voluntary clinics funded by organisations like the Gates Foundation and Britain’s Department for Development.

Ban lifted

Here, the government is also lifting a ban on NHS staff who have the HIV virus from carrying out certain procedures on patients, describing the current rules as “outdated”.

The chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, said science had moved on, and the chance of becoming infected was “more remote than being struck by lightning”. Just over 100 healthcare workers are belived to be employed in high risk roles like dentistry.

At the moment a positive HIV test would end their careers. Lifting the current ban could remove yet another barrier preventing people from seeking the test in the first place.