Johns Hopkins seeks funding to expand STD testing

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 13, 2005 by Robyn Lamb

After getting good results in Maryland, researchers at a Johns Hopkins University program that makes it possible for women to test for two sexually transmitted diseases at home are pushing for funding to expand nationally.

Under a pilot program that began last summer, more than 1,000 free test kits for chlamydia and gonorrhea were sent out in unmarked, brown envelopes to Maryland women, most under the age of 25, for home testing.

Of those, 400 samples were returned in a postage-paid envelope to a Johns Hopkins laboratory for processing. Ten percent of the samples tested positive for chlamydia, the most frequently reported bacterial sexually transmitted disease in the country.

The good news is nearly all the infected women sought treatment, about twice the rate of infected women that seek treatment in health clinics.

The results are proof, researchers said, that access to self- sampling test kits is an effective way to address the spread, detection and treatment of the disease that affected more about 880,000 women in the United States and 6,413 women in Baltimore in 2003.

This is the tip of the iceberg, the discovery phase, said Charlotte Gaydos, an infectious disease specialist and lead investigator in the study. To see it if it is acceptable, if women would use it, if they would mail it in and if we can get those infected treated. Now we need to think about the next step.

After receiving close to 300 requests for the kit from women outside Maryland and 150 men - one of them in Great Britain - Gaydos is looking for federal public health funding to expand the program to include Washington, D.C. and five surrounding states.

Part of what makes broadening the program feasible is the Internet, Gaydos said.

Although they were available at pharmacies and recreation centers throughout the state, most of the women in Maryland who ordered the kit - which includes a swab, a sealed container, instructions and a survey - used the Internet.

To expand the program we wouldn't need to stock every pharmacy in the United States, Gaydos said.

Privacy is critical among sexually active women under the age of 25 - the group most at risk for contracting chlamydia and the least likely to get regular testing - and the Internet provides confidentiality, she said.

Test results can be accessed by an automated phone system, accessed by an identifying number and a password. A woman taking the test would never have to talk to a person unless she tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease and needed treatment.

The kits are still available to people in Maryland, who can request them through www.iwantthekit.org. The study remains open until the end of the year.