HIV prevention: Doctors asked to take bigger role

The CDC would like physicians to use their power to influence patients' behavior to help stop the spread of AIDS.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Aug. 11, 2003.

Washington -- Physicians must ask their HIV-positive patients more probing questions about their sex lives and needle-using habits in order to slow the spread of AIDS, according to guidelines released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The document aims to help physicians and others who care for people infected by the AIDS virus to initiate conversations on sensitive subjects -- not always an easy task for time-strapped physicians intent upon treating these patients with an ever-changing battery of medications.

"It's time we merge prevention services for HIV-infected persons into the mainstream of medical care," said CDC Director Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH. "These guidelines provide a much-needed road map for medical professionals ... to work more closely with their HIV-infected patients to reduce HIV transmission."

The new guidelines, published in the July 18 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, resulted from a collaboration of the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the HIV Medicine Assn. of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The document calls for:

• Screening patients to assess risky behaviors that could spread the disease to sexual or needle-sharing partners. It also recommends that AIDS patients be tested for other sexually transmitted diseases and that the possibility of pregnancy be raised with female patients to help prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission.