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Agencies Track Down Hiv Carriers But Public Health Officials Can’t Force People To Disclose Their Sex Partners

Associated Press

Idaho public health agencies track down people with the HIV virus, although officials say they cannot force infected people to disclose their sex partners.

“We’re not the AIDS police,” said Bill Tramontin, HIV community services coordinator for the Central District Health Department in Boise.

As of last June, 423 HIV cases were reported in Idaho, along with 339 AIDS cases. Of those with AIDS, 211 have died.

The state estimates that another 65 to 175 Idaho residents are HIV-positive, but have not been identified.

“Thousands of people in Idaho are at risk, and some are HIV-infected and don’t know it,” said John Glaza, manager of the state’s sexually transmitted disease and AIDS program.

Under Idaho law, physicians and laboratories must disclose the names of people who test positive for HIV or any sexually transmitted disease.

The infected people are then contacted and asked to come in for a consultation.

They are given information on protecting their health and to reduce the risk of spreading HIV.

They are also asked to disclose the names of the people to whom they might have spread the infection by sexual contact or sharing drug needles.

Idaho health regulations say persons with venereal disease “shall be required to provide the name, address and telephone numbers” of all people who may have infected them or whom they may have infected.

But they are only regulations.

“We can’t force them to talk to us,” Tramontin said.

In Central District, and all other Idaho health districts, cooperative HIV-infected people are given a choice:

Notify their disease contacts, or name them and let health officials do it, confidentially.

Health officials then try to get the contacts to be tested for HIV, Glaza said.

People who will not divulge their contacts are asked to suggest that their contacts be tested.

Glaza said more than 90 percent of HIV clients identified by the department are interviewed, and many of those name possible contacts.