Followup in HIV testing. Partner notification: the Colorado Department of Health approach.

The Colorado Department of Health finds that partner notification, a procedure that has been beneficial in stemming epidemics of communicable diseases (most notably of syphilis), has proved useful and cost beneficial when applied to the current human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic. Of key importance is the extremely high level of confidentiality maintained by the department. Highly trained disease intervention specialists search for contacts, advise them to seek HIV testing, and counsel them on safer sex and I.V. practices.