STATE SHOULD REQUIRE REPORTING OF HIV INFECTION BY NAME, CODE EIGHTH Edition

• Published in: The morning call (Allentown, Pa.)
• Main Author: Stader, Barbara
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Allentown, Pa Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 19.05.1999
• ISSN: 0884-5557

(Barbara Stader is the director of the Allentown Health Bureau. This column is adapted from her testimony at a hearing last month on proposals before the state Health Department to make HIV infection a reportable condition either by name or a code The Allentown Board of Health and its Health Bureau recently went on record in favor of reporting HIV infection by name. We in Allentown arrived at this position after many years of public health experience in general, and after years of HIV prevention work in particular. Since the first tests for HIV antibodies in 1985, the Allentown Health Bureau has performed about 25,000 tests, and 533 have been confirmed positive, a 2 percent positivity rate. In all of our tests, we asked for the person's name and address. Our first principle is that in a public health sense, the person who is not being tested is as important as the person who is. Because of the infectious nature of HIV, the public health system has a duty to inform others whom the infected person may have exposed. Because we ask for names at the beginning of our testing process, we are able to more easily ask the names of contacts for purpose of partner notification if the result is positive. Interviewing infected persons and notifying contacts are uniquely public health functions. However, this important function is not possible without the voluntary cooperation of those infected. Persons who are infected with HIV become partners with us in the fight against the virus' spread -- in addition to getting the necessary referrals and treatment.