At home self testing HIV kits: progressive or destructive

There are always new items being sold in the pharmacy. Products and tools to improve health, and others that prevent illness. Lately, next to the common pregnancy tests are drug tests and even HIV test kits. They are also very affordable (not aimed at any specific class of people). Pharmacists need to be increasingly aware and sufficiently warned about products hitting their shelves. When I saw these for the first time, I immediate had mixed feelings and couldn't help but wonder: is this even legal? So many questions flooded my mind. What happened to the pre and post counselling? What do the positive test result patients do after? How do they cope? Who is accountable or responsible for allowing this? Where were pharmacists? 

Health care is such a basic primary necessity. It must be accessible and available to all but are we doing the public a disservice by exposing them to a potentially dangerous territory to which they are inexperienced? What are the pros and cons of having such test kit so readily available?

In the country with the  highest prevalence of HIV/ AIDS in the world (~19% of the general population) how do we approach the matter conscientiously? Is normalization the way to go? I don't have all the answers to these many questions but my unsettling intuition is alarming.

Yes, HIV is closer to a typical "chronic"  disease in its management today than it ever was but does that mean we lower our guard and efforts of detection and management? How about its prevention? Are we over it? 

Who is the kit targeted at? Conscious couples who want to engage in sexual practises and are being cautious? Or individuals who have been exposed/ at risk and now want to confirm infection? Let's be frank, those who buy them are not on the prevention side if things. In fact this tool might have a negative impact on the prevention spectrum. 

Isn't that what clinics were for? Free testing in the presence of a health care professional? What is the advantage of secrecy? Are people known to do the right/ healthy thing when no one is there to counsel them? I think not. Especially when a new younger generation of sexually active individuals have not been part of the intense campaigns that once were efficacious in preventing STIs and HIV

Nowadays youngsters are desensitized and the illness is de-stigmatized as perpetrated. Not that stigma is positive in itself, but in a context of at least deterring some, it was useful.

Can we leave the numerous already existing testing methods alone and focus on heightening prevention methods. Prevention has always been better than cure, especially when there still is no official cure. If we start preventing more than detecting, perhaps numbers van go down and new infections can cease. What happened to: no new HIV infections by 2020? Or was that not a thing?

Can we ask psychologists on how behavioural patterns are modified when susceptibility perceptions drop? When new infections or disease stigma disappear? But why don't we? Perhaps big pharma doesn't really care. This is just another money making tool.

The number of undiagnosed and untested individuals is high, but encouraging people to test in clinics is better than leaving them to depressive disorders or dangerous behaviors in the case of positive results. 

If anything is going to be sold in a pharmacy, pharmacists should at least stand up for patients who cant defend themselves and refuse such practises. It is dangerous, irresponsible and seldom beneficial.

Shocked,  saddened and confused.