A new screening kit for young people arrives this July 1, 2025. 100 % free, it is addressed to 18-25 year olds and targets the most widespread sexually transmitted infections. With this initiative, health insurance hopes to stop a worrying increase in cases, facilitating access to screening.
How to get and use this home screening kit
The new device called “My IST at home test” is easily accessible from the mon-test-ist.ameli.fr site. For the time being, only young women can order this kit from the dedicated site. Men will have to wait until the fall … but the whole young population will have access to it before the end of the year.
It all starts with a short anonymous questionnaire, made up of a dozen questions about your age, your sexual activity or your place of residence. Depending on your answers, the site allows you to order your kit for free. The order is fully covered by health insurance, without the need for vital card or bank card. The fund only announces that a lump sum participation of 2 euros will be deducted from your next health reimbursements.
Once ordered, the kit is delivered in a discreet envelope, without visible medical mention. The sample is done at home: vaginal for women, urinary for men (from fall). Then just send the sample back to the freed envelope provided. The results are available within five working days, by SMS and via the Mesanalyse.fr site, in complete confidentiality.
A response to a silent infections flambé
If health insurance has launched this kit, it is because sexually transmitted infections are in high progression, especially in young adults. Between 2021 and 2023, the cases of gonocoque climbed 59 % in men and 46 % in women. In men, chlamydia also jumped 10 % over the same period. Alarming figures, especially since these infections often go unnoticed, without symptoms, but can have heavy consequences, especially on fertility. He seemed to be urgent to act.
A global strategy to reach more young people
This new test thus targets early, fast and confidential screening … without going through a doctor box. It is part of a wider public health strategy and is added to another device, launched in September 2024: “My STI test”. This allows every 26 years to access free, without prescription, complete screening for chlamydia, gonococcus, syphilis, HIV and hepatitis B, in laboratories and free information, screening and diagnostic centers (CEGIDD).
Health insurance does not stop at this and also intends to multiply initiatives to reach the most exposed audiences. A traveling bus will travel several regions this summer to meet young people. In parallel, online awareness campaigns and on social networks will accompany the release of the kit in order to lift taboos, normalize the process and strengthen the screening reflex.
The stake is clear: to make the screening of STIs as common IST as a pharmacy. With this new kit, young people can now test themselves independently, at home, without judgment or constraint. To the point of becoming a habit?