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Call for home testing for HIV

2 November 2010

Home HIV testing kits should be made widely available in South Africa, three Aids experts have urged in the latest issue of the SA Medical Journal.

“South Africa has reached a point in its Aids epidemic where individuals should be able to decide when and where they would like to test for HIV, and do so without having to involve anyone else,” said Wits University academics Marlise Richter and Dr Francois Venter, and Andy Gray, a senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s medical school.

The SA Medical Association (Sama) had said it was risky for patients to test themselves “unmonitored”, and warned this could lead to patients committing suicide. The warning had been echoed by the national department of health and the Treatment Action Campaign.

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