New Brunswick lags in using rapid tests for STIs

A new study out of Dalhousie University shows New Brunswick is behind the times when it comes to testing for sexually transmitted infections.

Point-of-care testing is a fast, on-the-spot way to test for HIV, syphilis, and Hepatitis B, but it isn't available in Atlantic Canada.

"For people in the rest of Canada that have had access to this test for close to a decade, they would not say it's ground-breaking, they would probably say more like: `It's about time,'" said Jacqueline Gahagan, who is a professor of health promotion at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Point-of-care tests have to be ordered through provincial health departments, but New Brunswick doesn't do it.

The health department wouldn't respond to questions about the easy access tests.

New Brunswick hasn't released any numbers on sexually transmitted infections since 2013.

Debby Warren of AIDS Moncton knows of the tests from her time spent in Swaziland, Africa and said they are pretty basic.

"You just take a little lancette, and prick your finger, drop the blood … and within a minute your results are there."

Warren said she would be happy to train her staff to administer rapid tests if the province were to make the test available. The kits cost around $15.

"If I can go to rural Africa and have this test and yet I can't do it in one of the most wealthiest countries in the world, right, it's just a little mind boggling why we are behind."