THE Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL) is to start its official roll-out of the HIV self-test kits today, September 1, 2022.

The use of HIV self-test kits started in Jamaica in 2020 with the endorsement of the Ministry of Health and its partners, but monitoring and evaluation manager at JASL Xavier Biggs on Wednesday told the Jamaica Observer that the entity will formally start the process today.

“Jamaica has introduced HIV self-tests and JASL, as a part of the broader HIV programme, is rolling it out as well,” said Biggs.

The kit allows persons 16 years and older to test themselves for HIV in private and is sold at select pharmacies islandwide.

“The importance of HIV self-testing is basically giving people an alternative or additional modality health management and there are two things, while we normally encourage people to come and get tested, we know that there is a subset of people who are not doing that.

“Whether it is that they are afraid of the result or they don’t want people to know that they are doing the test. So we think that by introducing the self-testing to the market will better allow people to control how they access their HIV status,” said Biggs as he argued that this would be similar to the home pregnancy tests now done by some Jamaicans.

But Biggs noted that if individuals get a positive result, they are still urged to visit a health centre or private doctor to confirm and begin treatment.

“Self-testing does not replace the need for routine testing in a formal clinical setting. This is a screening process that allows people to know their HI status but it is still recommended that they do the formal process.”

The JASL official pointed out that the formal testing process allows for people to verify that the result is correct plus they can benefit from the pre- and post-counselling service that is provided in the formal system.

“One of the concerns that we have is that some people might act in an unfavourable manner with a positive result in an environment that we are not able to control; however, people are doing the self-tests anyway without our regulation and guidance.

“People were already importing HIV self-testing, so we decided that we would partner with the health ministry to formalise out the process works, create referral systems so when people buy or access the self-tests they know where to go and how to access the support that they need,” declared Biggs.

With international concerns about the cost of the self-test kits, Biggs argued that they will be relatively inexpensive in Jamaica.

“Affordability is going to be dependent of which particular test that pharmacy has available, but affordability should land you between $1,200 to a high of about $2,500 depending on the brand and all of that but it is general affordable,” said Biggs as he pointed out that JASL will offer some kits free of cost to people based on their risk profile.

Figures released last year by the health ministry showed an estimated 32,000 Jamaicans are living with HIV. Of this number, approximately 27,297 know their status and only about 15,000 are getting treated.

Although a HIV positive diagnosis may be daunting people can go on to live long and fulfilling lives as treatment can prevent the HIV from damaging the immune system and progressing to the potentially fatal AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).