A new at-home test will soon be available for chlamydia and gonorrhoea. Here’s what to know

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has recently approved a self-test kit for chlamydia and gonorrhoea for women and other people with a vagina.

Reports indicate these at-home tests will be available in pharmacies from December 13.

So what do we know about this test?

The basics

The test is developed by a Sydney-based company called Touch Biotechnology.

We don’t yet know how much retailers will charge for it, but people will need to pay for the test out-of-pocket (Medicare only subsidises pathology tests done in a lab).

The test is for two of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), chlamydia and gonorrhoea. Both are bacterial infections.

It’s a vaginal test. While it’s possible to contract chlamydia and gonorrhoea in other parts of the body including the throat and rectum, at present there are no self-test kits available in Australia for other sites (or for men and other people without a vagina).

To collect a sample, you insert a swab into the vagina. The next steps are similar to an at-home COVID test, although the sample needs to be mixed with two different solutions, rather than one.

You next place a few drops of the mixed solution into two separate wells on a cassette (one for chlamydia and one for gonorrhoea). Similar to a COVID test, two lines mean you most likely have an infection, and one line means you probably don’t. You can read the result after about 15 minutes.

Who should take this test?

Most people who contract chlamydia won’t have any symptoms. But the infection can sometimes cause burning when you pass urine, vaginal discharge, unusual vaginal bleeding and pelvic pain.

Gonorrhoea usually doesn’t cause any symptoms when it’s in the vagina, but it can similarly cause vaginal discharge, bleeding and pain.

All this means you don’t need to have any symptoms to take a test.

If you don’t have symptoms, it’s important not to test too early after exposure. Chlamydia can take 7–14 days from exposure and gonorrhoea can take about 7 days to show up in a test, including lab-based tests. If you had sex without a condom and are worried, taking a test at about one week would be best (if you do have symptoms it’s reasonable to take one sooner).

Most STIs are easy to treat, but when they’re not diagnosed and treated over a long period, they can cause complications. For example, chlamydia can travel up into the uterus and fallopian tubes and cause problems with fertility.

Of course, detecting and treating STIs is also important to reduce their spread. Chlamydia and gonorrhoea infections have been increasing in Australia over the past couple of years.

How accurate is the test?

The TGA has strict criteria about how accurate at-home STI tests need to be. They must have a sensitivity of at least 95%, meaning they correctly identify at least 95% of positive cases.

Touch Biotechnology states the at-home chlamydia and gonorrhoea test has more than 99% sensitivity. However the research underpinning this figure has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

In any case, a positive result still needs to be confirmed with a lab-based test. So if you return a positive test, you need to consult a doctor for further testing and advice on treatment.

At-home STI tests are not entirely new

While this represents an exciting innovation in sexual health, at-home testing for STIs is not a completely new thing in Australia. HIV self-tests have been available for purchase in Australian pharmacies since 2021. These tests involve extracting a small amount of blood from your fingertip.

Looking at how HIV home tests have worked can give us clues as to what we might expect from these newer at-home tests for chlamydia and gonorrhoea.

Although most HIV testing is still done in clinics, the availability of self-tests has been shown to increase how often people test for HIV and encourage people who have never tested before to do so.

At-home HIV testing provides an extra level of anonymity compared to attending a clinic. This may be especially important for some populations including younger people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse or migrant communities, and men who have sex with men who identify as straight.

Research suggests most people who get a positive test result on HIV self-tests successfully become linked to the care and treatment they need.

In Australia, it’s also now possible for women and people with a cervix aged 25 and older to collect their own vaginal swab to screen for HPV, which causes cervical cancer. You can take the swab in a clinic or arrange for at-home testing via telehealth.

Some things to consider

When you see a clinician such as a doctor or nurse for a sexual health check-up, they can discuss a range of issues with you including contraception, STIs, vaccinations and other methods of prevention.

At-home tests should not replace discussing your sexual health and wellbeing with a clinician, such as at a GP clinic, sexual health clinic, youth health clinic or other health service.

And remember the at-home test is limited to chlamydia and gonorrhoea only. If you have symptoms that are worrying you, such as pelvic pain, pain during sex or pain with urination, it’s possible you may have another STI, or a different medical issue.

So, if you have symptoms and your at-home test is negative for chlamydia and gonorrhoea, it would be a good idea to get examined to see what else might be going on.