News
MACLEAN'S | Why it’s time for Canada to introduce self-testing HIV kits
Published: 17 January 2020
Seventy-seven countries, including the U.S., South Africa and Nigeria, have approved home self-testing HIV kits, using either a mouth swab or a drop of blood. Canada is not among them, despite the fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) gave its blessing in 2016 to self-test HIV kits as a tool in the quest to eradicate the virus. [...] Now, doctors, public health workers and leaders in HIV/AIDS organizations are saying enough is enough. They want Health Canada to approve self-test HIV kits.
“It’s totally doable,” says Nitika Pant Pai, a research scientist at Health Centre in Montreal and an associate professor in ’s department of medicine. “If you can do it in Africa, why can’t you do it in Canada?”