BMJ 1995;310:1265 (13 May)

Letters

Testing in prison is uncommon

EDITOR,--We agree with O Noel Gill and colleagues that there are difficulties in measuring the incidence of HIV infection acquired in prison.1 Reasons for this include the fact that acute HIV infection may be asymptomatic and that a pattern of repeated short prison sentences is not conducive to the detection of new infections. We appreciate the confidential nature of information about imprisonment and the problems associated with recording it accurately. We also appreciate that assessing the possible contribution of imprisonment to transmission of HIV at the national level is not easy as existing national voluntary confidential HIV and AIDS surveillance reporting systems, which safeguard confidentiality, cannot provide information about a history of periods in prison.

Our experience suggests that the frequency of diagnostic HIV testing in prison is low, although we recognise that efforts are being made to increase it. This laboratory serves one of Britain's largest prisons, catering for . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Imprisonment, injecting drug use, and bloodborne viruses
Onoel Gill, Ahilya Noone, and Julia Heptonstall
BMJ 1995 310: 275-276. [Extract] [Full Text]

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