National HIV Testing Week: How self-testing kits will help to end the epidemic by 2030

Brigette Bard, founder of BioSure, tells Zlata Rodionova that the kit helps to normalise the conversation around the virus so more people can be protected

BioSure’s HIV self-test kits: the aim is to relieve pressure on overcrowded sexual health clinics (BioSure)

The next time you stop at your local Boots store to buy household staples like soap, shampoo or tissues, you might also consider picking up something more unconventional but nonetheless essential: an HIV test

“HIV is treatable and no longer a death sentence for those who know they have it. The fact that you can now find self-testing kits on shelves helps to normalise the conversations around it so more people can be protected,” says Brigette Bard, the founder of BioSure, the start-up which began manufacturing the first legally approved HIV self-testing kit in the UK in 2015, following the overturn of the legislation banning such devices.

In England, while new HIV diagnoses have fallen to their lowest in almost two decades, the latest data from Public Health England reports that 43 per cent of all diagnoses were late.