I’ve been reading about the emerging antibiotic resistant strains of Gonorrhea. The World Health Organization says there are strains out there that will soon be untreatable.
Prevention is clearly the most effective ways to fight STD’s.
Why isn’t more effort being put into developing effective home test kits? That will provide an indication that you may have one. It doesn’t need to be 100% accurate. Just an indication that you may have one and should avoid sexual contact until getting checked at a clinic.
They need to be in every drug store just like home pregnancy kits. They aren’t a 100% accurate but are still quite helpful.
Google indicates a few home STD kits are available but they require mailing it in to a lab and waiting several days.
It certainly seems like developing a quick STD test kit would be an urgent priority for the CDC and WHO.
I am not sure of the exact procedures but these tests are not merely taking a urine (or whatever) sample then beep-boop-beep a result can be determined.
As I understand it the sample needs to be swiped on agar and grow a culture and then have an expert examine the results. That takes time and cannot be done at home reliably and this is too important to get wrong.
I’m not sure what medical technology can offer. Any test that indicates there might be a STD would be better than nothing.
Right now, two people meet, find a room, and hope for the best. They “should” go to a clinic and get tested first. But that usually isn’t how it works out. Sex is not always a rational decision.
Even if a home test strip only offered 50% accuracy, that a STD might be present. That’s still a staggering number of STD’s that could be prevented.
Former microbiologist here, who actually did STD research.
IMO, the problems are both economic and technical. Home pregnancy tests are developed and sold because there are millions of pregnancies and perhaps tens of millions suspected. Big market.
Syphilis cases are in tens of thousands, gonorrhea cases in the hundreds of thousands. Small market.
Techically, each STD requires a different diagnostic test - often best done with eyes on a microscope or growing cultures. DNA based PCR tests exist but require expensive hardware. Quite a bit more complicated than a test for hCG.
A quick test for HIV does exist so others could be developed. However, I suspect that the HIV test results from the fact that infections are asymptomatic and can be fatal - neither of which is true with STDs.
When considering accuracy stats you need to consider both false negatives and false positives.
If that 50% you quote are for false negatives, then people will assume they are safe and probably not use a condom. That’s worse because that person will now spread even more disease as their partner has a false sense of protection.
If it’s false positive then those people think they have a disease that has huge social implications without benefit of medical counseling or follow up. Imagine someone testing themselves, getting a false positive, and accusing their partner of cheating on them or thinking the situation is so horrible they harm themselves, without know if there are good treatments.
People should use condoms to prevent STDs. Condoms should be easily accessible and their use encouraged. That’s the way to stop the spread of STDs.
The first problem is with the 50% accuracy … we have many false negatives that might enhance the spread of STD’s … the second problem is what Whack-a-Mole brings up … testing requires a lab setting for some STD’s … so again we’re going to be having too many false negatives …
It’s a choice to engage in risky sexual behavior … and unprotected sex with someone we just met a few hours ago is definitely risky behavior … not only are some STD’s permanent, being a parent is also permanent … both might just send us to an early grave …
You should start from the assumption that humans are lousy at running these tests, and no matter how idiot-proof you make them, the idiots will always figure out a way to outsmart you. So you’ll get a very high rate of both kinds of errors.
Now, with a home pregnancy test, this isn’t a big deal: One way or the other, you’re going to know for sure within a few months anyway. The worst that can happen is that you’re a little bit later in buying your crib and stroller than you’d prefer, or the shotgun wedding needs to be planned on shorter notice. So it doesn’t really matter if the test is error-prone.
With an STD test, though, you’re going to get people coming up with a false negative and thinking they’re clean, and using that as an excuse to sleep around. Or people coming up with a false positive, and thereafter shunning all medical care, because they don’t want anyone else to find out. And both of those will have very bad consequences, both for the person taking the test and for society as a whole.
Since the ubiquity of birth control, I suspect that the majority of home pregnancy test kits are bought by people who are wishing for a positive result. So a false positive becomes, at worst, a bit of a disappointment, and a false negative something to rejoice over.
The human body does all the hard work for a pregnancy test. All the test does is look for the marker the body has thoughtfully created. Looking for an infection with a specific bug, that is going to be a whole lot harder, and error prone. Any test delivering too many false positives will become ignored. Any test delivering too many false negatives is just plain dangerous.
As test for the promiscuous, an STD home test kit doesn’t seem to have a sensible use case. Find a room, ask your partner to pee into the kit, wait, and then decide whether a condom is needed? There is no sensible way I can imagine this working. If this is your life, and you don’t have a stock of condoms at hand, you are a fool, and a danger.
We can’t expect *any *people to behave rationally. A few will, but the statistical way to plan is that they all don’t.
In a country where millions of young people don’t have medical insurance you think that after a positive home test they’re going to run to a clinic and get tested at a cost of a couple hundred bucks plus time off from work/school?
Even if some of them did, once the real laboratory grade medical test came back clean you can rest assured they will never use a home test again. No matter how much those home tests may improve in the future.
If you’re in a position to worry about whether condoms block herpes, then you probably already have it. Herpes is incredibly common among sexually-active people: If you don’t have it, it’s probably because you’re either a virgin, or your only relationship has been a monogamous one.
In addition to the fact that the market is small for tests for syphilis and gonorrhea in industrialized countries because the infections are relatively rare, the fact that treatment for both conditions has been cheap further discourages the development of tests for either condition. But, the lack of a lucrative market is not the only problem. In the 1990s, NIH funding and prizes were offered for anyone who could come up with at reasonably accurate, rapid test for gonorrhea and chlamydia and/or syphilis (I forget which). The problem is that for a fast, point-of-care test to work, you need a technology that will create a visible signal when target molecules are detected. This is traditionally done by amplification. For example, you can let bacteria multiply in a petri dish, or, you can amplify species-specific DNA segments using polymerase chain reaction technology; either gives you plenty of targets. But amplification takes time. In the clinic, in the case of a gonococcal infection in a person without symptoms, for example, there might only be a few thousand bacteria in your sample. It is hard to set up a system where your test bed looks one way if no molecules are present and another way if just a few thousand are present. So if you have no signs or symptoms and want a test, you’ll have to phone in later for the results, after amplification. (Of course, a lot of people have signs or symptoms or they have been told they have been exposed to a diagnosed infection—they can be treated without further testing.)