That's not a bad idea, but how does liability play out on a defective test, or a test used in a manner other than directed?
Would you bet the rest of your life on a casual test like that?
Would you bet the rest of your life on a casual test like that?
On an individual level, this doesn't guarantee much, but on a population level this could provide a huge benefit. You yourself might not feel confident based on the test, but it would likely severely limit the spread of STDs (as long as treatment is available and accessible).
The main benifit of a bed-side test isn't that it informs the person who is infected. It is that it informs the person who is not infected.
Currently, most people who ask about STD status just take their partners word. Maybe a particuarly paranoid person will ask to see actual lab results, which could reasonably be months or years old at best (how often do you expect people to get tested?) or maliciously forged at worst (hopefully rare enough to be irrelevant at the population level).
With a bedside test, you get up to date information (subject to the quality of the test) on if you are about to get exposed, and can avoid the exposure if necessary.
There is still the cultural issue of needing to test your partner before an interaction, would might come across as prohibitively offensive.
HIV transmission is not so easy; last I checked, the rough odds of transmission from a single act of unprotected vaginal sex with a HIV+ partner was around 1 in 500.
If the test is 99% accurate, and your partner isn't in an obvious high risk group, it may push the odds into "less risky than other behaviors you commonly accept" territory.
For point of reference, condom use only decreases the risk by a factor of 10. Possibly less: https://www.catie.ca/en/fact-sheets/prevention/condoms
Either way, you only have to add a few more digits of risk mitigation and you're more likely to die in a car accident. A test that had even a 1% false negative rate would cover most of that ground.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/health/hiv-aids/rate-global-diagn...