Would you notify relatives and sexual partners of positive results?

Certain health departments offer contract referral, in which the infected person has a few days to notify his or her partners.

And New Jersey's system of notifying partners is voluntary.

Local health departments can assist with notifying partners.

The same state law authorizes doctors to notify such partners when an infected patient fails to do so.

But in most, the laws do not specifically require local health departments to notify partners, as in New York.

Current state law already allows doctors to notify partners or ask local health authorities to do so.

Increasingly, states are trying to strengthen partner notification programs, in which health departments notify sexual partners who may have been exposed to the virus.

More states are also strengthening programs to notify partners of infected people.

And health workers did not track down and notify sexual partners of those who had the disease, a standard practice with other sexually transmitted diseases.