Even if treatment isn't available. The main benifit of a bed-side test isn't that it informs the person who is infected. It is that it informs the person who i

Even if treatment isn't available. The main benifit of a bed-side test isn't that it informs the person who is infected. It is that it informs the person who is not infected. Currently, most people who ask about STD status just take their partners word. Maybe a particuarly paranoid person will ask to see actual lab results, which could reasonably be months or years old at best (how often do you expect people to get tested?) or maliciously forged at worst (hopefully rare enough to be irrelevant at the population level). With a bedside test, you get up to date information (subject to the quality of the test) on if you are about to get exposed, and can avoid the exposure if necessary. There is still the cultural issue of needing to test your partner before an interaction, would might come across as prohibitively offensive.