HIV Reporting

Purpose	Confidentiality
Forms	State Laws

Links to external resources are provided as a public service and do not imply endorsement by the Washington State Department of Health.

Purpose

The purpose of disease reporting and surveillance is to:

Collect information about people who are infected in order to understand how to create programs that will prevent disease.
Assure that people who are infected are referred to medical care.
Identify people who are infected and try to stop the spread of infection.

The following people must report information to authorities:

Health care providers: AIDS and HIV cases to local health jurisdictions within 3 working days
Hospitals and other health care facilities: AIDS and HIV cases to local health jurisdictions within 3 working days
Laboratories:
- For HIV, positive Western blot assays, p24 antigen or viral culture tests are notifiable within 2 workdays to Public Health-Seattle & King County (PHSKC) for labs in King County and the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) for labs outside of King County. All results, whether they are positive or not detectable, on HIV nucleic acid tests (RNA or DNA) are notifiable on a monthly basis
- All CD4+ absolute counts and percentages on a monthly basis
Local health jurisdictions: tell WA DOH within 7 calendar days of case investigation completion or summary information required within 21 calendar days of finding out about a new case.

Confidentiality

State laws protect the identity of persons reported with HIV or AIDS. Anyone who breaks these laws may get in legal trouble and have to pay large fines. Case reports are kept in locked rooms and workers must have special training and permission to get into the rooms.

Forms

Case Report forms are available on the health department's disease reporting webpage.

Seattle & King County Adult HIV/AIDS Case Report (PDF 113KB)

State Laws

Go to the Health Department's disease reporting webpage for a list of Washington Administrative Code (WAC) sections.