When your body detects something harmful (like a bacteria or a virus) your immune system starts to produce antibodies to try and defend your body.

Each type of antibody is unique and this is what is detected by your Always Be Sure different STI Self test.

The technology is very similar to a human pregnancy test. The process detects specific antibodies in your blood sample, (not infectious agent) and this is what produces the test Result Line (the second line).

Each Always Be Sure STI Self Test Kit has an inbuilt control line (the C-Line; the top line) This makes sure that the test has been performed and run correctly.

The control line, is a sample control line and it will only become visible if the correct volume of human blood has been applied. This means you can be confident that your STI test result has been generated by a test that you have done properly.

The time from when STI infection occurs to when a test can correctly give a positive result is called the ‘window period’. During this period, someone who has been infected with STI will still get a negative HIV test result because they will not have enough antibodies in their blood sample to generate a positive result against that microbe.

This does not mean the person testing is negative. In fact, because there are not enough antibodies, the amount of HIV virus (the viral load) in their body is very high and this early (acute) phase is the most infectious period.

Everybody makes antibodies at different rates and against different microbes.

Always Be Sure is a high end quality screening test which has the top detection limit among all other brands which makes it the ideal choice for the earlier detection possible for a screening test.

A negative result may not be accurate until 21 days after infection with HIV, and after 28 days for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and Syphilis.