HIV alert took six months

THE HIV-positive dentist in eastern Victoria alerted authorities to his status in January.

THE HIV-positive dentist in eastern Victoria alerted authorities to his status in January, raising questions about why health officials took so long to alert 399 people potentially exposed to ­infection.

Victorian Health Minister David Davis yesterday defended the response time, saying the investigation into the dentist’s work was lengthy, complex and required careful examination.

Mr Davis said the dentist had followed protocols and so far 89 of the 399 patients had been cleared of contracting HIV.

The Australian understands a key reason the government has set up a clinic to test the patients is because of a precedent in the US more than 20 years ago when an HIV-positive dentist infected six patients with the AIDS virus. The government has been eager to stress that the chance of cross-­infection is low, although this can depend on the type of work conducted by the dentist in question.

Mr Davis said Chief Health Officer Rosemary Lester had overseen a regime of investi­gating the dentist and that extensive testing had been undertaken.

Labor leader Daniel Andrews, a former health minister, accused the government of failing to act quickly enough to investigate any cross-infections. “It is concerning that the diagnosis of the practitioner was confirmed some seven (sic) months ago and the 400 potential infections — those individuals — have only been notified very, very recently,’’ he said.

The dentist was working in Bairnsdale, about 280km east of Melbourne, and Mr Davis does not believe that he or she is still working in the industry.

The government has written to 399 people informing them of the need to be tested for HIV.

Bairnsdale mother-of-eight Karen Lyell yesterday was concerned about the length of delay between when the infection was reported and when the testing was undertaken. “That’s a long time, isn’t it?” Ms Lyell said.

The Health Department wrote to the patients, declaring they had been pinpointed because of a “specific procedure from a healthcare worker’’.

“Your risk of catching HIV in this situation is very small and we have not had any reports of HIV infection passing to a patient from this healthcare worker,’’ the letter says.

The gap of at least six months between when the virus was contracted and when it became public means patients will need only one test to determine whether they have contracted HIV.