About 30 per cent of people living with HIV are unaware of it but within months, tests with instant results will be available for everyone, says Orhan Hassan, program manager of Healthy Sexuality and Risk Reduction with Ottawa Public Health.
About 30 per cent of people living with HIV are unaware of it but within months, tests with instant results will be available for everyone, says Orhan Hassan, program manager of Healthy Sexuality and Risk Reduction with Ottawa Public Health.
The city is following a Toronto pilot project of integrating point-of-care testing into the options available at clinics and health centres.
Point-of-care testing offers results while you wait. Any reactive or inconclusive results require full blood tests to confirm, but non-reactive results allow people to know right away that they are not infected, Hassan explained.
“It is a matter of seconds, a finger prick,” said Hassan. “We are hoping point-of-care will release the barriers of conventional blood testing.”
One problem is simply the lack of people that go and get tested, especially when so many STIs have no visible symptoms. Public health officials said they hope the convenience point-of-care offers will help combat this.
Still, waiting for results can be helpful, explained Richard Naster, a team leader with Bruce House, a residence organization for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The usual lag time of two weeks for HIV results helps people become sure and composed about what they are doing, he said.
With the medications available for Canadians, a positive result is not necessarily life threatening – as it once was – he said, but it is still extremely life changing.
Naster compared the convenience of point-of-care with at-home pregnancy tests and said the most important thing is getting effective counselling and education about the diagnosis and how to keep oneself healthy.
A mandatory pre-test counselling procedure is conducted with every test, said Hassan. He said it is during this procedure that the person’s mental well being and preparedness is observed so the counsellor will know the best way to approach them if the result is positive.
“Any type of testing [available for] people is likely to be a good thing,” said Naster. “But there are still a lot of misconceptions for people. HIV is still about sex and drugs, and people will judge.”
The stigma associated with HIV/AIDS has structured the AIDS and sexual health community in many ways.
For example, Naster explained that this is the 20th anniversary for Bruce House that is only, recently, becoming more open and public about its location. Hassan admitted that the government first introduced anonymous HIV tests to help increase the level of testing done.
Still true today: if a person receives other tests that require contact information – like those for chlamydia or gonorrhea – their HIV test results will stay anonymous and cannot be linked to the other tests, Hassan explained.
Hassan said the point-of-care tests will follow the same legal structure as the usual blood tests, with the options of full anonymity, nominal – meaning you give your name – or non-nominal which is when you give a fake name or number code to check your results.
With non-nominal, the results can still be traced to allow for follow-up and reporting. Positive HIV results are required by law to be reported to help administer treatment and contain the spread of disease, Hassan explained.
One Centretown resident who has never had an STI test agreed that more convenience would mean more people.
“It would be a lot easier to ask someone to go get tested if you are in a relationship,” said Eryn Munholland, 21.
Echoing Hassan and Naster, Munholland – who is a part of the age group that shows continually increasing infection levels – said getting results right away would also allow you to start dealing with them right away, in terms of educating yourself and finding medical help.
If convenience of HIV testing ever followed the pregnancy test into our homes and drug store shelves, Munholland said she would still go to a clinic.
“sThat way you don’t feel like you have to do this alone."