Home AIDS test approved by FDA

WASHINGTON -- Americans will soon be able to test themselves in the privacy of their homes for the virus that causes AIDS, now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first rapid, over-the-counter HIV test.

The OraQuick test detects the presence of HIV antibodies using a mouth swab and returns a result in 20 to 40 minutes.

Government officials estimate that about 240,000 people, or one-fifth of the roughly 1.2 million people carrying HIV in the U.S., don't know they are infected. Testing is a chief means of slowing new infections, which have held steady at about 50,000 per year for two decades.

FDA officials said the test is designed for people who might not otherwise get tested.

"The availability of a home-use HIV test kit provides another option for individuals to get tested so that they can seek medical care, if appropriate," said Dr. Karen Midthun, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Orasure plans to start selling the test in October, both online and through retailers like Walgreens, CVS and Walmart. It hasn't set a price yet but expects the consumer version to cost less than $60. That's substantially more than the one for about $17.50 marketed to health professionals. Chief executive Doug Michels said the higher price will help pay for a toll-free call center to provide counseling and medical referrals to test users.

"Each of the call-center operators is bilingual in English and Spanish, they've gone through 160 hours of training on HIV counseling and testing," Michels said in an interview with The Associated Press. "So they are highly trained professionals and they'll be there to support the consumer."

Michels said the company's marketing efforts will focus on populations at greatest risk of being infected with HIV, including gay and bisexual men, African Americans and Hispanics.

The FDA stressed that the test is not 100 percent accurate. Orasure's trials showed OraQuick detected HIV in those carrying the virus 92 percent of the time, though it was 99.9 percent accurate in ruling out those who didn't have the virus.

That means the test could miss one in 12 HIV-infected people who use it.But it would incorrectly identify only one person as having HIV for every 5,000 HIV-negative people tested, the FDA said.

People who test negative should get re-tested after three months, because it can take several weeks for detectable antibodies to HIV to appear, according to Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's HIV unit.