HIV positive health professionals should be able to continue practising provided they avoid work which poses an unacceptable risk of transmission to their patients. Education programs should also target specific groups at higher risk and be culturally appropriate for those groups. Doctors need to be actively involved in the provision of education of those at higher risk as well as the broader community. Preventive educational literature and programs may need to be explicit, and the DRS encourages GPs as well as other services to be an outlet for such material. Prisoners should have access to condoms and clean needles.
Contact tracing as a means of controlling the spread of the infection is important.
This must be done sensitively and in strict confidence. Infected individuals should be counselled as to how best to inform their partners. Testing should be available through a range of facilities, including appropriately trained health workers, community practitioners, teaching hospitals and specialised clinics. 11.4.3 Compulsory testing is opposed in principle. Appropriate counselling to facilitate testing those at risk of contracting or transmitting HIV is preferred.