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HIV home testing

The sale of any type of HIV home testing kit for private use is currently illegal in the UK. However many companies based in other countries are offering HIV home testing kits for sale via the internet.

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

Only one company in the USA (Home Access) has been approved to provide Home Sampling kits which involve taking a small amount of blood from a finger tip and sending it to an accredited laboratory in the USA for testing.

Gay Men's Health supports the right of individuals to make informed choices about their own health including whether, when and by what method to have an HIV test.

However, at present, there is no approved Home Testing Kit available in the UK which meets required standards of clinical accuracy and confidentiality or which offers access to pre-test information, post-test support and advice, and automatic access to specialist clinics for HIV services.

Gay Men's Health, therefore, does not recommend the use of any HIV Home Testing kits in the UK at this time.