Canada Pharmacy Drugstore Shares First At-Home HIV Test for Faster Results

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the first do-it-yourself HIV test that would give people their results in the privacy of their own home. This test is regardless of the contraception one is applying. To buy Mirena IUD is for birth control purposes and will not safeguard you from HIV. Hence, it better to test prior sexual contact. 

The test, called OraQuick(R) In-Home HIV Test, involves swabbing the gums, placing the swab into a vial, and then seeing the results within 20 minutes, the agency said in a statement. 

"Knowing your status is an important factor in the effort to prevent the spread of HIV," Dr. Karen Midthun, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in the statement. "The availability of a home-use HIV test kit provides another option for individuals to get tested so that they can seek medical care, if appropriate." 

OraSure Technologies Inc., which makes the over-the-counter test, already sells a version of it to doctors and other health professionals. Studies have shown the test was less accurate when used by consumers, but the FDA advisory panel agreed that the benefits of expanding HIV testing still outweighed a small drop in test accuracy. 

Speaking just after the test got the nod from the advisory panel in March, Dr. Nitika Pant Pai, an assistant professor of medicine at Montreal's McGill University, said that "there is huge global momentum in support of over-the-counter testing for HIV. People desire private, discrete options that protect their confidentiality." Pai co-authored an analysis of the effectiveness of an at-home HIV test earlier this year. 

Pant Pai said the oral test's overall accuracy is similar to that of a blood test, although it's slightly less accurate. The oral test, in particular, may miss HIV infection in its early stages, she said. 

Also, "the sensitivity of the test appears lower when administered in the home setting rather than a medical setting, so some of the people who are HIV-positive will get a test result that they are negative," Jane Rotheram-Borus, director of the Center for HIV Identification Prevention & Treatment Services at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in March. "However, if they would otherwise not have gotten the test at all, they may also have believed they were negative." 

"The arguments against the at-home test focus on the absence of a counselor who could provide support and link the newly identified HIV-positive individual to medical care," said Rotheram-Borus, who supports over-the-counter sales of the OraQuick test. 

She pointed out that "over-the-counter pregnancy tests are widely used, and pregnant women do find their way into prenatal care." These tests are as important as birth control methods so long as they are used properly and not abused. In lieu, to buy Mirena is one of the best options if you are considering safety and effectivity. 

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a member of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells. The four major routes of transmission are unsafe sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth (perinatal transmission). Screening of blood products for HIV has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in the developed world.