DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Law No. 55-93 of 31 December 1993 establishing the notification of public health authorities of all matters relating to living or deceased persons who have been infected with the AIDS virus. (Gaceta Oficial, Vol. 143, No. 9875, 31 January 1994, pp. 55-65.)
Chapter I. Diagnosis
Article 1. The national or regional public health authorities must be notified of the detection of the presence of HIV or the diagnosis of AIDS in any person, alive or dead.
Article 2. The performance of tests for the diagnosis of HIV infection is prohibited, except in the following cases:
a) When the physician has a clinical and/or epidemiological suspicion of HIV infection, after the authorization of the patient.
b) Upon the request of an interested party who has a medical order.
c) When a person is about to donate blood or human organs.
d) In the course of epidemiological research studies that are voluntary (with the prior authorization of the patient) or that are anonymous and not linked to information that provides personal identification.
Paragraph: Blood transfusion without the required screening for HIV and viral hepatitis is also prohibited.
Article 3. Tests for the diagnosis of HIV are not to be carried out:
a) For work-related purposes, such as a requirement for entry into employment or a condition for remaining in employment.
b) For purposes relating to health care: when the patient’s care is conditioned on the results of the test.
Article 4. In the case of persons who test seropositive for the detection of HIV or who have AIDS, the institution where the patient requests medical care is to provide integral care services in accordance with his or her needs.
Article 5. Institutions that offer health services are to provide counselling and emotional support services with personnel trained and qualified to inform patients about their serological condition.
Article 6. Information related to all cases in which the diagnosis is seropositive for HIV is of a strictly confidential character.
Chapter II. Prevention
Article 7. Prevention is the most important instrument for the control of HIV infection. It is to be promoted by all institutions in the country, public as well as private, governmental (OGS) and non-governmental (ONGS).
Article 8. The provision of sexual education, in accordance with the educational level that is appropriate, shall be instituted in all primary schools, secondary schools, and centres of higher education, public as well as private. To this end, the State Secretariat of Education, Fine Arts, and Religion (SEEBAC) and the National Council of Higher Education (CONES) shall adopt the measures that they believe to be pertinent for creating and/or strengthening programmes and training teaching staff.
The State Secretariat of Education, Fine Arts, and Religion (SEEBAC), in coordination with SESPAS, is to include information about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and AIDS in sexual education plans referred to in this Article.
Article 9. The General Directorate of Telecommunications, in coordination with SESPAS and SEEBAC, shall distribute messages, free of charge, in the mass media. The messages shall be directed at giving the public guidance on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and AIDS.
Article 10. SESPAS shall establish communication and education policies on STDs and AIDS that are sufficiently based on a scientific approach to the subject.
Article 11. With the Dominican Institute of Social Security (IDSS), the Armed Forces (FFAA), the National Police (PN), and other public and private institutions that deal with health services, SESPAS shall coordinate courses for the personnel working in these services. The purpose shall be to educate and train such personnel on aspects of health promotion, prevention of STDs and AIDS, biosecurity, and integral care for patients with HIV or AIDS.
Article 12. In coordination with union offices, the State Secretariat of Labour shall promote to employees and owners in all public and private enterprises that operate in the country necessary information, education, and communication on the means of transmission and prevention of STDs and AIDS. SESPAS shall provide the required assistance as to the content of this information, education, and communication, which, for this purpose, is supported by the State Secretariat of Labour.
Article 13. With the technical assistance of SESPAS, the State Enterprise Corporation (CORDE) and the Administrative Secretariat of the Presidency shall promote to all public employees adequate information, education, and communication on ways of preventing STDs and AIDS.
Article 14. With the technical aid of SESPAS, the Secretariat of State for Tourism shall promote to hotel personnel and personnel in similar activities, as well as tourists, a plan of information, education, and communication designed to prevent the spread of STDs and AIDS.
Article 15. The reuse of syringes, needles, equipment, and other disposable or discardable materials is prohibited in all health establishments, public as well as private.
Paragraph: The above provision encompasses non-discardable syringes and needles when these are used in places lacking equipment, devices, or personnel to ensure their effective sterilization.
Article 16. Establishments such as private rooms, hotels, motels, etc., that provide beds, are to place a minimum of two contraceptive sheaths or condoms in a visible place, without the client being required to ask for them.
Article 17. SESPAS shall adopt measures to exempt from the payment of duties male and female condoms, gloves, masks, and glasses used by health personnel in relation to biosecurity standards for the prevention of STDs and AIDS.
Article 18. SESPAS shall prepare a list of medicines and/or vaccines that have demonstrated effectiveness in the treatment of HIV infection/AIDS so that they may be exempted from the payment of duties.
Chapter III. Rights and Duties
Article 19. In coordination with similar institutions, SESPAS shall issue a regulation that contains ethical, technical, and inter-institutional definitions and procedures for the application of this Law.
Article 20. Institutions, public as well as private, that provide health services are obligated to provide without any discrimination integral care to persons infected with HIV and persons with AIDS, respecting their dignity and adhering to ethical, technical-administrative, and legal standards.
Article 21. When it is proven through laboratory tests that a person is a carrier of HIV, this person is to inform his or her physician of persons who have been his or her sexual contacts and is to inform these persons of his or her seropositive status.
Paragraph I: In cases in which the seropositive person does not want or is unable to inform his or her sexual contacts personally of his or her serological condition, this person may delegate the communication with sexual contacts to the physician and/or professional who is caring for him or her.
Paragraph II: In cases in which all efforts to comply with the provisions of this Article have been exhausted and the patient refuses to proceed in the manner provided, the physician and/or professional treating the case may inform SESPAS in order to establish a means of communicating to the patient’s sexual contacts the risk to which they have been exposed.
Article 22. Workers or employees who are seropositive for HIV are not obligated to inform their employers of their serological condition.
Article 23. Persons deprived of their liberty are to be treated as any other person and may not subjected to required tests to detect HIV infection, except for the purposes of proof in a legal action.
Article 24. Infected children and adolescents and the children of infected mothers or fathers, regardless of whether they are carriers of HIV, or not, may not be denied, for this reason, entrance to public or private educational centres or be prevented from remaining there; nor may they be discriminated against for any reason.
Article 25. Persons diagnosed as carriers of HIV/AIDS antibodies may not donate blood, semen, breast-milk, organs, or anatomical parts.
Article 26. All persons who know of their seropositive status for HIV are to communicate their serological condition to persons with whom they are going to establish sexual relations, in order to obtain the informed consent of those persons.
Article 27. Any laboratory or blood bank engaged in carrying out tests for the detection of HIV antibodies, or any other measure for diagnosing the presence of HIV are, in addition to being registered with SESPAS, to notify the state institution of the results of these tests.
Article 28. All laboratories, blood banks, and health care centres are required to dispose of their sanitary waste according to the biosecurity standards that SESPAS establishes.
Article 29. Laboratories, blood banks, and health care centres are to provide conditions and training to personnel who handle sanitary waste so that such personnel are protected from infection by HIV or other infectious-contagious illnesses.
Article 30. Therapeutic research on humans, especially research carried out on persons who are HIV positive or who have AIDS, shall be subject to the Helsinki Declaration issued by the World Medical Assembly, so long as no specific legal provisions on the subject exist.
Paragraph: SESPAS shall promote research designed to achieve a greater understanding of how to prevent and control HIV infection/AIDS and shall prepare a corresponding regulation for the ethical regulation of research on and treatment of persons who are seropositive or who have AIDS.
Chapter IV. Sanctions
Article 31. Persons who deliberately violate Articles 25 and 26 of this Law, or who, by means of blood, needles, syringes, or other instruments infected with HIV, or by means of a sexual crime ("violación sexual") or seduction, try to infect another person, shall be punished with the penalties provided for in the Penal Code.
Article 32. Violation of Articles 15 and 16 of this Law shall be punished with a fine of five thousand pesos (DR$5,000.00).
Article 33. Violation of Article 23 of this Law shall be punished with a fine of DR$10,000.00 (ten thousand pesos) and shall give rise before the Tribunal of First Instance to claims for damages against the person who arranged for the tests referred to.
Article 34. Violation of Article 4 of this Law shall be punished with a fine of DR$30,000.00 (thirty thousand pesos) to DR$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand pesos), regardless of claims for damages based on this violation.
Article 35. In cases in which the violation of Article 2 of this Law consists of the marketing of blood, breast-milk, semen, or anatomical organs without prior screening for HIV and Viral Hepatitis, the laboratory or institution that has carried out this marketing shall be closed for six (6) months and a fine of DR$30,000.00 (thirty thousand pesos) to DR$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand pesos) shall be imposed on the institution, as well as a term of correctional institutionalization ("prisión correccional") of six (6) months to two (2) years on the responsible person.
Article 36. Violation of Article 3(a) of this Law as it relates to remaining in or entry into employment shall be punished with a fine of DR$30,000.00 (thirty thousand pesos) to DR$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand pesos) and with the payment of one year’s salary to the employee, regardless of the payments established by the Labour Code and other labour laws of the country for cases of unjustified dismissal.
Article 37. Violation of Article 30 shall be determined by an Ethics Committee designated for that purpose by SESPAS under regulations in force. This Committee shall apply appropriate punishment, including the transfer of the violators to the ordinary courts.
Article 38. Civil actions that are brought on the basis of this Law shall be handled and decided by the Court of First Instance of the domicile of the defendant or of the place where the infraction occurred, observing the ordinary rules of procedure.
Article 39. For the purposes of this law, the following definitions are adopted:
Integral Care: The combination of preventative-assistance services that are provided to a person in order to satisfy the necessities that his or her condition of health requires.
AIDS Case: Each person infected with HIV who presents signs and symptoms directly associated with that infection.
Serological Condition: The situation of an individual in relation to the positive or negative result of a confirming diagnostic test for this infection.
Confidentiality: Confidentiality is understood to be the discretion that each and every member of a health team is to maintain with respect to an individual’s state of health, when they know about it by reason of suspicion of HIV infection, study, or care for the illness.
Counselling and Emotional Support: The combination of activities carried out by personnel trained and qualified to give information, education, advice, and support to patients, their families, and community with respect to HIV infection and AIDS. Based on risk, they try to identify and attend to those behaviours that constitute factors that affect the attitudes of the people and groups mentioned above or that represent a potential risk to others.
Contagion: Transmission of HIV infection to a susceptible individual, through direct or indirect contact.
Contamination: The presence of HIV in persons, objects, or products.
Discrimination: Attitudes or practices that affect the development of the normal activities of a person or group of persons within the context of society, family, employment, or care or that reject or exclude these persons because of suspicion or confirmation that they are infected with HIV.
HIV Infection: The replication of HIV in an individual, with the consequent immune system response.
Infected: An individual who tests serologically positive specifically for HIV.
Immunodeficiency: Failure of an individual’s immune system to produce a response to the presence of foreign biological agents or substances.
Biological Material: All tissue, fluid, or secretions of human or animal origin that are susceptible to contamination or that cause contamination.
Universal Methods Of Biosecurity: The combination of standards, recommendations, and precautions designed to prevent the risk of harm to or contamination of persons due to physical, chemical, or biological agents.
Prevention: Adoption of appropriate measures designed to prevent the risk of harm, contamination, or contagion.
Tests For The Diagnosis Of HIV Infection: Serological examinations that indicate HIV infection in an individual. They may be presumptive (when their results, in case of reactivity, require confirmation by another laboratory procedure) or confirmative (serological examinations of high specificity that confirm HIV infection).
Indiscriminate Diagnostic Test: A serological examination carried out on an individual, group, or community, without taking into consideration clinical or epidemiological criteria.
Seropositive: An individual with a positive confirmatory diagnostic test for HIV infection.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS): The combination of symptoms and signs produced by an individual’s compromised immune system as a consequence of HIV infection.