The AIDS service organisation in Zurich is planning a special online service: Anyone who has tested positive can invite their sexual partners to an HIV test by text message - without being recognised. HIV activists and experts protest
For the really important messages in life, 160 characters are enough - as many as will fit in a text message. In Switzerland, such a short message could soon read: "You may have contracted HIV from one of your sexual partners. Why don't you take an HIV test in three months to be on the safe side? LG, your Aids-Hilfe"
A bad joke? No, the Zurich AIDS service organisation is actually working on an online service that allows HIV-positive people to ask their sex partners for an HIV test by text message or email - without revealing themselves. The idea hit the headlines when Swiss Health Minister Didier Burkhalter recently presented the new "National Programme on HIV 2011-2017". The ambitious goal: to halve the number of new HIV infections in Switzerland every year by 2017.
The Federal Office of Public Health wants "insightful" infected people
Roger Staub, prevention expert at the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), praised the Zurich SMS service as a good example of the necessary "cultural change in dealing with diseases". It should become a matter of course to inform relatives "out of understanding" after an HIV diagnosis.
The anonymous information option via the Internet is apparently intended to help the free will of those who have just tested positive to also inform their partners.
Partner notification programmes in Canada and the USA serve as a model. Anyone who has found out about their HIV infection can send anonymised emails or text messages to their sexual partners via the websites of these programmes. The address of the nearest counselling centre is automatically included.
Freedom of choice at risk?
Experts and HIV activists criticise this attempt to exert gentle pressure. "This is not an issue that can be dealt with by text message," says Michèle Meyer, chairwoman of the Swiss self-help organisation LHIVE, indignantly. "I have nothing against encouraging people to get tested. But it should be up to each individual to decide if and when they want to have the diagnosis." This freedom of choice is in danger. "The FOPH wants to nudge people in a certain direction."
However, the controversial notification tool does not yet exist. "As always, the FOPH was a little too quick with the announcement," admits Benedikt Zahno from the Zurich AIDS service organisation. "We are currently considering having such a programme developed in the first quarter of 2011."
In rare cases, however, the Zurich AIDS service organisation already sends out emails inviting people to take an HIV test. The recipients are people who have tested positive and assume that they may have been infected during sex with them
Many questions are still unanswered
"Of course we don't write anything about the positive diagnosis," Zahno assures us. "We only issue a general invitation to take an HIV test." He also recognises the weaknesses of the offer: "We are currently thinking very hard about how we can implement this skilfully. There's no point in plunging 30 men into a crisis by text message just because they might have been infected with HIV."
Apart from that: Is such a gimmick even necessary? "In every counselling session after an HIV diagnosis, positive people are encouraged to inform their family members," emphasises Dirk Sander, the German AIDS service organisation's gay rights officer. It is much more important to create a social environment in which people with HIV can talk about their illness without fear - including with their sexual partners.
Infection figures could rise instead of falling
HIV testing and counselling services must always be protected from state intervention. "If I exert subtle pressure on people seeking an HIV test to provide their partner's details, then the Zurich AIDS service centre will soon be waiting in vain for customers," predicts Sander. "If the indicated cultural change is realised in this way, the HIV figures in Switzerland will double rather than halve by 2017."
(Philip Eicker)
