Some clinics could use one urine sample for a battery of tests. This raises many concerns over informed consent for HIV testing at the workplace. Another potential problem with urine tests is establishing a chain of custody for the sample. While blood and oral samples may be more invasive to collect, assuring the identity of a urine sample collected outside the lab could pose additional logistical problems. Rapid Tests Rapid screening tests have been in use in the developing world and Europe for several years.
Rapid tests exist for blood, urine, and saliva.
Until March 1998, testing guidelines developed by the CDC did not allow preliminary positive results to be given to testers since these unconformed results could be false positives. This meant that all clients typically have to wait up to two weeks for results which take one day to process. Because so many people fail to return for their results at STD clinics, the CDC changed its long-standing policy against giving preliminary results in their guidelines for rapid testing released earlier this year. Rapid testing of blood is now approved for testing centers in the US, but with a major caveat. Using rapid testing, negative clients, the vast majority, would test and receive their result in one visit.