BLQ Checkpoint is a community sexual health centre on Via San Carlo, run by the volunteers of Plus APS, the Italian association of LGBT+ people living with HIV. It opened in 2015 as the first place in the country to offer rapid testing outside a hospital.
Testing is by saliva swab or finger prick and covers HIV, hepatitis C and syphilis, with results back in minutes. Counselling comes with it and is done peer to peer, by people with the same experience rather than by clinical staff at a distance, which is the whole reason the place exists in this form.
The checkpoint also handles PrEP information and referral.
The people in this picture are AI-generated.
