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The National Association of People
With AIDS (NAPWA) salutes the FDA
Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee for recommending approval of OraSure's
OraQuick In-home HIV Test kit. We urge the FDA to follow the Advisory
Committee's recommendation and approve the kit for over-the-counter sale.
With an estimated one-fifth of Americans
who live with HIV unaware they are infected, there is an obvious need for more
testing and more ways to get tested. There are people who need to get tested
who will not do so in a traditional medical setting. We hope many of them take
advantage of a home test kit to learn their status, so they can seek treatment
for their infections, stay healthy, and take steps not to infect their
partners.
We recognize that some who receive a
positive result from the home test kit will be traumatized and need immediate
emotional support and suicide prevention assistance. Others will need help
understanding the HIV health care system and the care options they have. We
urge OraSure and the FDA to provide 24-hour toll-free hotlines for people who
need help coping with their test results or finding treatment and support
resources.
We also call for a major public
information campaign when in-home test kits become available in pharmacies
without prescription, emphasizing that HIV is treatable but left untreated can
kill, that people receiving effective treatment are less likely to transmit HIV
to others, and that they may be eligible for ADAP and other Ryan White programs
if they do not have meaningful private health insurance. The campaign should also explain that there
is a small risk of false positive and false negative results, that it may take
three to six months for a new infection to be detectable, and testing negative
does not mean one can stop practicing safe sex.
"We welcome in-home
testing," said Stephen Bailous, Executive vice President of NAPWA and
Chairman of the Washington, D.C. EMA Ryan White Planning Council. "We know
there are risks in allowing people to test themselves for HIV without counseling,
but we also know we are still seeing more than 50,000 new HIV infections every
year, and a large majority of them come from sexual contact with people who do
not know they have the virus. Reducing the number of undetected, untreated HIV
infections will bring the number of new infections down. In-home testing is one
of many new testing and treatment options that promise to bring the end of AIDS
in America.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
