New revolutionary HIV test provides results in one minute

On Saturday, June 8^th, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) will make history as the first HIV testing program in New York City to use a revolutionary HIV test that provides results to people in just one minute. The program will be launched at the 17^th annual Brooklyn Pride Festival where free testing will be offered out of AHF's mobile testing unit and the visiting Condom Nation van throughout the festival from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Free, confidential 1-minute INSTI testing will be available on an ongoing basis at AHF's new Out of the Closet Thrift Store in Brooklyn (475 Atlantic Ave.) every Monday-Saturday from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm beginning on Monday, June 10^th. AHF is a proud sponsor of this year's Brooklyn Pride.

“The increased availability of the INSTI™ 60-second rapid test in the U.S. … is a game-changer and will allow for large-scale testing events and new ways for point-of-care testing in Emergency Rooms. Most importantly, it will lead to new techniques to reach people.”

Last September, AHF was the first HIV testing program in the United States to use the revolutionary HIV test when it launched a program to offer it at all of its Los Angeles locations last September. AHF now offers the test at many of its locations throughout Florida as well. For more information about AHF's testing locations in New York and other parts of the U.S., please visit: www.freehivtest.net.

"With an estimated 15% of people who are HIV-positive unaware of their status, our hope is that the INSTI one-minute test removes a barrier that prevents people from getting tested regularly," said Michael Camacho, NYC Regional Director for AHF. "Though the 1-minute test has been widely deployed in other countries in Africa and elsewhere over the past four years, it has only been available in the U.S. since last September. Unlike other tests that take 15 to 30 minutes for results, the INSTI™ test produces results in as little as 60 seconds—a revolution for testing in the U.S. - and, now, New York!"

bioLytical Laboratories' one-minute HIV test, the INSTI™ Rapid HIV Test, was approved for widespread use in the United States in late July 2012 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At the time, Whitney Engeran-Cordova, Senior Director of AHF's Public Health Division, said, "The increased availability of the INSTI™ 60-second rapid test in the U.S. … is a game-changer and will allow for large-scale testing events and new ways for point-of-care testing in Emergency Rooms. Most importantly, it will lead to new techniques to reach people."

According to a bioLytical statement of the time of FDA approval in July, "The INSTI™ Rapid HIV Antibody Test is the first rapid HIV test to meet the stringent requirements of the updated Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) guidelines, which pertain to the complexity of laboratory tests. A CLIA Waived test is categorized as a 'simple laboratory examination or procedure that has an insignificant risk of an erroneous result,' meaning the tests can be performed by untrained users at point-of-care (POC) locations across the country." bioLytical also noted, "The INSTI™ Rapid HIV-1 Antibody Test, the world's only proven 60-second test for HIV/AIDS, is being made more widely available to the U.S. population. Found to meet the CLIA Waived performance requirements for finger-stick blood samples, INSTI™ can now be used by HIV testers and healthcare providers in a significantly expanded variety of settings."