This company’s free HIV tests are now on shelves at certain Walmart stores
July 25, 2024
This company’s free HIV tests are now on shelves at certain Walmart stores
The tests, from telemedicine company Mistr, are a crucial first step to getting patients on HIV-prevention meds.
Getting prescribed HIV-prevention drugs starts with a test, but cost and stigma can prevent people from getting tested. That’s why telemedicine provider Mistr is working with Walmart to bring its free HIV testing kits to seven stores in Georgia, which has the nation’s third-highest rate of new HIV infections.
Mistr launched in 2018 with a focus on helping patients access pre- and post-exposure HIV-prevention medications at low or no cost. Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows the rate of new infections declining by 12% between 2018 and 2022, tens of thousands of people are diagnosed every year. AmfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, estimates that 13% of the 1.2 million Americans with HIV—which disproportionately impacts people of color and men who have sex with men—don’t know they have the virus.
“We particularly need access to these tests in rural areas where it’s hard to get to a clinic,” says Mistr founder Tristan Schukraft. “Walmart is well situated to provide that.”
Mistr’s free kits will complement Walmart’s efforts in the past year to improve care for its customers with HIV. Last year, the retailer opened 70 HIV-focused specialty pharmacy locations in Texas, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Florida, offering free, pharmacist-provided HIV tests as part of opening events. This summer, it’s working on bringing free HIV tests to 18 of the specialty pharmacy locations in Colorado and Virginia. Schukraft says Mistr can step in where Walmart’s expanding efforts still don’t reach (Georgia is also among the states where the retailer is shuttering its primary care clinics).
Mistr’s test will be available on the shelf in the stores that offer them (Walmart also sells other brands of HIV tests). Customers can bring the test home, prick their finger, and then mail their sample to Mistr’s lab, receiving results within four days. A Mistr healthcare provider will review all positive tests and contact the patient to offer follow-up care—which patients can receive through the company or their own doctors.
Mistr helps patients in English and Spanish get meds like PrEP and DoxyPEP— which is taken after exposure to HIV—for free. The company works with insurance companies to get a patient’s drugs covered, and enrolls uninsured patients into assistance programs. Mistr partners with government programs to receive subsidies and grants to make its services free.
Mistr is currently underwriting the entire cost of the free HIV test program, but Schukraft hopes MISTR will be able to secure some government grants to expand the program nationally. Having lost a friend to HIV, Schukraft sees Mistr’s work as an imperative. “This generation owes it to previous generations—who had no options and died as a result—to use all of our tools to eliminate HIV,” he says.
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