MACLEAN'S | Why it’s time for Canada to introduce self-testing HIV kits

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 McGill University Health Centre in Montreal and an associate professor in McGill’s department of medicine. “If you can do it in Africa, why can’t you do it in Canada?”