Odunsi Babafemi
Faculty of Law, Department of Business Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Stud Fam Plann. 2007 Dec;38(4):297-306. doi: 10.1111/j.1728-4465.2007.00142.x.
The emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has added to the tension between patients' private interests and public health interests regarding medical confidentiality. Many people become infected with HIV because they are unaware of the positive serostatus of their sexual partners. Informing or warning the sexual partners of HIV-positive patients of the patients'serostatus could assist in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS because sexual partners can thereby choose to avoid having unprotected sex with infected persons. By law, however, doctors have a duty to their patients to protect their medical confidentiality. Doctors, therefore, face a dilemma concerning which should prevail: patients' right to privacy and confidentiality or the importance to society of controlling the spread of the pandemic. Most medical regulatory bodies do not take clear-cut positions on the issue, leaving the decision to the discretion of individual doctors. The question of whether doctors should be legally empowered to breach the confidence of patients to protect the patients' sexual partners is discussed here with reference to the existing laws of Canada, the United States, and Nigeria.
艾滋病毒/艾滋病大流行的出现加剧了患者个人利益与公共卫生利益在医疗保密方面的紧张关系。许多人感染艾滋病毒是因为他们不知道性伴侣的血清学阳性状况。告知艾滋病毒呈阳性患者的性伴侣其血清学状况，或向他们发出警告，有助于遏制艾滋病毒/艾滋病的传播，因为性伴侣因此可以选择避免与感染者进行无保护性行为。然而，根据法律，医生有责任保护患者的医疗保密信息。因此，医生面临一个两难境地：患者的隐私和保密权与控制疫情传播对社会的重要性，究竟哪一个应该优先。大多数医疗监管机构在这个问题上没有明确立场，将决定权留给个别医生。本文参照加拿大、美国和尼日利亚的现行法律，讨论医生是否应被赋予法律权力，为保护患者的性伴侣而违背患者的保密要求这一问题。
