Types of Home HIV Tests

Video Transcript

"There are a number of different methods that can be used for testing for HIV. There's only one that is FDA approved in the home, and I have it right here. It's the Home Access brand of HIV test. What this is going to involve is using a small lancet to make a finger stick to collect the blood sample. In a public health care or doctor's office setting they can test you by making a full blood draw, like for any other blood test you may have had in you life, a cholesterol check, a thyroid check, and that involves an IV blood sample taken generally from the crook of the arm. Or another possible test method you could encounter in a public health or doctor's office setting, is a cheek swab. Which just involves taking a sample of tissue from your cheek and sending it to a laboratory to be tested for the virus. Any of these methods are reliable, the fact that this one is FDA approved means that the FDA, which is the "Food and Drug Administration" of the United States for any of our foreign viewers who may be watching, or for Americans who don't know either. One of the advantages is that the FDA has guaranteed this to be 99.9 percent accurate in testing for HIV. Really there's not a whole lot of point in using anything less than almost entirely accurate when testing for any sort of health care concern."