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Drag queen, campaigner and one of our favourite stars from Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK Season 1, Crystal has teamed up with us for HIV Testing Week, to share her thoughts on the ease and availability of home testing kits – complete with practical demonstration!
Last week, ahead of HIV Testing Week, I posted a short clip showing how simple and straightforward it can be to take a test at home.
Regular testing benefits everyone, if you are HIV negative, you can use protection such as PrEP or condoms to stay negative. If you are HIV positive, you can go on treatment and live a long and healthy life. And as you know, people on effective HIV treatment can’t pass it on to partners.
Living in London, I test regularly through services provided by shl.uk. It’s very fast, and it’s free. And I’m lucky, because in London this service is available to me year-round.
Unfortunately, currently, 30% of sexual health services in rural England don’t offer postal STI and HIV testing.
So charities such as the National AIDS trust are asking the Department for Health and Social Care to invest in a year-round online HIV and STI postal testing service. Research shows it’s the best way to get testing to hard-to-reach communities – and it would also be cheaper than the current patchwork model!
So, while services catch up with the need for free nationwide year round at-home testing, National HIV testing week is a great time for you to test!
Visit freetesting.hiv to order a home testing kit now.