Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Bay Area Reporter - October 8, 1999
Terry Beswick
According to preliminary, unpublished findings, of the 54 asked, only four people agreed to volunteer the names of a total of 11 contacts whom they may have infected with HIV.
Federally funded investigators with the city's Department of Public Health (DPH) then notified the 11 partners that they may have been exposed to the virus.
Despite the low level of participation from the pool of newly diagnosed potential volunteers, the $290,000 demonstration project has just received a one-year $145,000 extension from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to Dr. Willi McFarland, director of HIV seroepidemiology with the DPH and the study's lead investigator.
McFarland said there are currently no plans to expand the project in San Francisco.
Using a new HIV test that can differentiate whether the testee was infected within the last four months, or earlier, allowing the recently HIV-diagnosed to narrow down the possibilities of sexual contacts, researchers say they are trying to determine whether confidential partner notification is an effective form of HIV prevention.
When HIV-positive volunteers report unsafe sexual practices with their partners, investigators make a more aggressive effort to contact the partners, and offer them testing and referrals.
The detuned ELISA HIV antibody test, co-developed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, is one of several changes in the medical, cultural, and political landscape that epidemiologists believe might make contact tracing acceptable in the AIDS-affected communities as a form of HIV prevention. Advances in early intervention treatment for HIV-positive people is another key change they cited.
The Partner Assistance, Information, and Referral Services (PAIRS) project is the first of its kind to be conducted anywhere.
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