Patients will be able to get laboratory tests, without a prescription, for five sexually transmitted infections: HIV, hepatitis B, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
- STI screening will be reimbursed, without requiring a prescription, at 100% by Health Insurance for young people under 26 and at 60% for the rest of the population. Until now, only the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could be detected without cost or prescription – since 2022.
- The protocol, called “My STI test” and included in the Social Security Financing Act (LFSS), was set up by the Ministry of Health to stem the worrying rise in STIs in the country in recent years.
- In 2022, some 2.6 million people were able, thanks to a prescription from their doctor, to benefit at least once from reimbursed screening for Chlamydia trachomatis infection, 3 million from screening for gonococcal infection and 3.1 million from screening for syphilis.
Prevention objective. Hepatitis B, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea: from September 1, screening for these four sexually transmitted infections (STIs) will be reimbursed, without requiring a prescription, at 100% by Health Insurance for young people under 26 and at 60% for the rest of the population. Until now, only the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could be detected without cost or prescription – since 2022.
Facilitating access to STI screening
The protocol, called “My STI test” and included in the Social Security Financing Act (LFSS), was set up by the Ministry of Health to stem the worrying rise in STIs in the country in recent years.
When he is received in the medical biology laboratory, whether he is “city or hospital”the patient will have to fill out a questionnaire in order to be directed “towards the most relevant screenings”, specifies the decree published in the Official Journal. In the event of a positive result, the patient will be received or contacted by the biologist, then taken care of by “an appropriate care structure”. This new device “marks a significant step forward in the fight against STIs, by facilitating access to screening and strengthening prevention efforts”assures the ministry.
#Press release ????️| Strengthening the #prevention of the #IST : THE #screening at the patient’s request and without prescription from September 1, 2024. ⤵️
— Ministry of Health and Prevention (@Sante_Gouv) August 30, 2024
Gonorrhoea, syphilis and chlamydia cases on the rise in EU
Encouraging screening appears more crucial than ever as bacterial STIs are currently on the rise again “worrying” in the European Union, according to the latest report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Between July 2022 and June 2023, cases of gonorrhoea jumped by 48%, those of syphilis by 34% and those of chlamydia by 16%. It is even worse in metropolitan France, where infections increased by 91%, 110% and 16% respectively between 2020 and 2022, warned researchers in December.
Patients will now be able to bypass the doctor’s box to get tested in a laboratory. There are many of them: in 2022, some 2.6 million people were able, thanks to a prescription from their doctor, to benefit at least once from a reimbursed screening for a Chlamydia trachomatis infection, 3 million from a screening for a gonococcal infection and 3.1 million from a screening for syphilis, according to the Public Health France bulletin published at the end of 2023.
