The sale of any type of HIV home testing kit for private use is not currently common in the UK.

However, many companies based in other countries are offering HIV home testing kits for sale via the internet.

Home HIV kits are not generally recommended because of questions about their accuracy and the lack of counselling or emotional support for those who use them.

 

If you decide that home testing is something you want to do you need to have as much information about them as possible before you decide to use one. You will also have to think about how you might react or deal with getting either a positive or negative result.

 

There are two main types – Instant HIV Test kits and Home Sampling kits. Instant HIV kits involve taking a small amount of your blood and adding it to a solution. The result of the test is available within 5 minutes. These kits cannot be sold legally in many countries and one company has been prosecuted in the USA for providing fraudulent kits.

 

Home sampling kits work in a different way. You do not get a result immediately. Each test kit comes with an instructions booklet with illustrations. You collect a blood sample which is shipped to the company's laboratory and then after a few days you call back for test results, basic phone counselling and possible referrals.