New options for testing and treating common sexually transmitted diseases are becoming available in the U.S., including FDA-approved at-home tests for screening and new oral drugs for gonorrhea.
In 2025, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first at-home test that can detect three infections in women—gonorrhea, chlamydia and trichomoniasis—and also approved the first home-based kit for HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer. The FDA ended the year by approving two different drugs for gonorrhea, the first new options for the disease in decades.
Experts said the shift builds on earlier progress that expanded testing access during the COVID-19 pandemic, when screening, education and treatment for sexual health were disrupted nationwide. They said the pandemic years also accelerated adoption of testing technology used for over-the-counter coronavirus tests, now being translated into home-based kits for syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections.
“Sexual health can be stigmatized and people can be hesitant about testing,” said Dr. Ina Park, a sexual health specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “Now we have a lot of options for patients who may be wary of going into a provider’s office.”
One of the new at-home options is a three-in-one test for women that Visby Medical launched after FDA approval in March. The test includes a vaginal testing swab and a small testing device. After uploading a photo of the device, users can review results on a mobile app.
The test costs $150 and includes a telehealth consultation with a medical provider who can discuss results and prescribe antibiotics or other medication, if needed. Visby said and Dr. Gary Schoolnik described that the entire process—from buying the test to getting a prescription—can take as little as six hours, compared with several days under the traditional testing model. Schoolnik, also a professor emeritus at Stanford Medical School, said many patients are hard to track down and that some with positive test results are never treated and are lost to follow-up.
The FDA approved Visby’s test based on study results showing it correctly detected the three infections with accuracy rates around 98% or higher, similar to tests performed at hospitals and health clinics. The article also noted that some home-based tests still require outside input to get results, including FDA approval in May for Teal Health’s HPV kit.
The Teal Health option is marketed as the Teal Wand. It allows women to collect their own vaginal sample, which is then placed in a tube and shipped to a laboratory for processing. The article said updated federal guidelines for HPV screening released earlier this month endorsed self collection for the first time.
For gonorrhea, the FDA approved two new drugs that can be taken by mouth, a major change from the prior standard of injectable ceftriaxone. Nuzolvenc, developed through a public-private partnership, comes in granules that dissolve in water, while Bluejepa, from GlaxoSmithKline, is a tablet that is also approved to treat urinary tract infections. The article said the CDC previously recommended oral azithromycin alongside injectable ceftriaxone, but dropped the pill from its guidance after signs that gonorrhea was growing resistant to it.
“We were down to one class of antibiotics recommended to treat gonorrhea and we had no other good options,” Park said. “So to have two new options in the same year is very exciting.”
The approvals arrive as STD rates are falling again, based on CDC provisional data for 2024 that showed a third consecutive year of fewer gonorrhea cases and a second year in a row of fewer adult cases of chlamydia and the most infectious forms of syphilis. Experts pointed to several factors behind the trend, including less sexual activity among young people, increased use of an antibiotic as a morning-after pill to prevent infections, and more at-home screening.
Even with the new tools, some experts urged caution. The article warned that as more people test at home, it could become harder to track national infection rates that were previously reported by a handful of large testing laboratories. It also said some new tests and drugs come with higher price tags that may limit access; for example, it reported that Visby’s $150 test is not covered by insurance.
Park said she is optimistic about expanded testing options and access to new drugs, but she said she fears cuts to public health could reduce access to sexual health care for populations who can least afford the new options.
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This story has been updated to correct an erroneous description of a test by Visby Medical. The test uses a vaginal swab, not urine, and users must upload a photo of the device to get the results, not send the test results to a mobile app.