Australia: Victoria Calls for HIV Protocols

HIV/AIDS advocates in Victoria want authorities to provide clearer policies for determining when criminal charges should be lodged against HIV-positive people who risk infecting others. Though there are national guidelines, a recent review suggests many state policies are unclear about what circumstances trigger a health department's referral of an HIV-related case to the police, said Mike Kennedy, executive director of the Victoria AIDS Council.

"I'm not aware of any Australian state that has any clear guidelines to say how this will happen, so that's the missing bit from the reviews that were done around the country," Kennedy said. "Our view is that [protocols] ought to be governed by a set of agreed procedures, not just rely on goodwill and a set of relationships between people in the health department and people in the police service, because those people change."

"If someone goes out and deliberately attempts to infect, or does infect someone with HIV, most people are going to say if it's deliberate and there's intent, then that's criminal," said Kennedy. "If a slip-up happens, which they do, most people, including a lot of police, are going to say, 'Well, that's not criminal,' but there's an awful lot of space between the two of those."

The call for clearly stated policies follows the release of a National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS monograph advocating a halt to the upward trend in HIV-related criminal prosecutions. Since 1993, 22 such prosecutions have gone forward in Australia, with half occurring since 2007.

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