Change in HIV Reporting Regulations

On March 8, 2006 the WA State Board of Health (BOH) unanimously approved an emergency change to the Washington Administrative Code to provide for retaining names of people with asymptomatic HIV infection. Because of the temporary rule, several references to reporting regulations throughout our website are now outdated. Only a few changes are implemented with this emergency rule and additional, permanent changes will be considered by the BOH in June. We will correct all references once a permanent rule has been established.

As of March 8, some reporting regulations have NOT CHANGED:

• HIV and AIDS case reports all include name
• Laboratory reports all include name
• Local health departments delete HIV names for new reports by 90 days
• Local health departments keep names on AIDS cases and symptomatic HIV cases

As of March 8, some reporting regulations have CHANGED:

• Local health departments send HIV names to the state
• The state keeps (does not delete) HIV names

As a result of the changes, local health departments will begin restoring names to cases previously stripped of names when possible, but will delete those names within 3 days after reporting them to the state.

Questions: Jim.Kent@kingcounty.gov or call at 206-205-6121.

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