As of Oct. 1, health care providers — including the University Health Center — are required to report to the Oregon Health Division the identities of all people who test positive for HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS.
The Oregon Department of Human Services’ HIV Program has instituted a new system for reporting, and health care providers will now have to turn over the names of patients who test positive for HIV. After completing a patient’s case report, DHS will create an identification code unique to each patient and erase the name from HIV Program records. Under no circumstances, according to DHS, will a person’s name be held for more than 90 days.
The policy, which was instituted by DHS after four years of debate, has raised privacy concerns. Some health care providers and citizens’ rights groups argue that certain people at risk for the virus will refuse to be tested for fear that their identities will be leaked or reported to other government agencies.
“HIV and AIDS are different; there’s still a stigma attached that can lead to problems for people,” said Jann Carson, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. “DHS needs to be sensitive to that.”
Oregon has required that the identities of people with AIDS be reported since 1984, but health care providers were only required to identify those with HIV in certain situations — such as when a unit of donated blood tested positive. However, new treatments have significantly reduced the number of deaths from AIDS and incidents of new AIDS cases since 1995, causing DHS to change the policy.
HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS, differs from other diseases on OHD’s reportable disease list in that it must be reported directly to OHD. Other diseases, such as measles, hepatitis and rubella, must be reported to local county health departments.
Veda Latin, the manager of the HIV, STD and TB program for DHS, said the goal in changing the policy is improve the state’s ability to track the spread of HIV and target high-risk populations with new treatments and prevention methods. DHS currently estimates that between 3,800 and 8,600 Oregonians are HIV positive. The hope is that the new policy will give state health officials more accurate numbers, Latin said.
However, there is fear among those working directly with high-risk populations that many people at risk for infection will not distinguish between having their name or their identification code on file.
“People who are out on the street and at high risk don’t understand the subtleties,” said Leslie Habetler, advocacy director for the HIV Alliance, a not-for-profit Eugene organization that offers free HIV prevention and counseling services. “These people are very hard to reach and really don’t like to deal with the government.”
Oregon is the 48th state to institute an HIV reporting system, and Latin said that while there is a possibility that the number of people going for testing might drop, judging from the experiences of other states, those numbers should return to normal after about six months. She also stressed the fact that the new policy would not apply to those who wish to be tested anonymously.
The University Health Center administers approximately 700 HIV tests each year, but Dr. Gerald Fleischli, director of the center, said he is not worried that the change in policy will scare people away.
“If people test positive, there are treatments,” he said. “Most people want to get those treatments.”