PDFWAC 246-100-036

Responsibilities and duties—Local health officers.

(1) The local health officer shall establish, in consultation with local health care providers, health facilities, emergency management personnel, law enforcement agencies, and any other entity he or she deems necessary, plans, policies, and procedures for instituting emergency measures necessary to prevent the spread of communicable disease or contamination.
(2) Local health officers shall:
(a) Notify health care providers within the health district regarding requirements in this chapter;
(b) Ensure anonymous HIV testing is reasonably available;
(c) Make HIV testing, AIDS counseling, and pretest and post-test counseling, as defined in this chapter, available for voluntary, mandatory, and anonymous testing and counseling as required by RCW 70.24.400;
(d) Make information on anonymous HIV testing, AIDS counseling, and pretest and post-test counseling, as described under WAC 246-100-208 and 246-100-209, available;
(e) Use identifying information on HIV-infected individuals provided according to chapter 246-101 WAC only:
(i) For purposes of contacting the HIV-positive individual to provide test results and post-test counseling; or
(ii) To contact persons who have experienced substantial exposure, including sex and injection equipment-sharing partners, and spouses; or
(iii) To link with other name-based public health disease registries when doing so will improve ability to provide needed care services and counseling and disease prevention; and
(f) Destroy documentation of referral information established in WAC 246-100-072 and this subsection containing identities and identifying information on HIV-infected individuals and at-risk partners of those individuals immediately after notifying partners or within three months, whichever occurs first.
(3) Local health officers shall, when necessary, conduct investigations and institute disease control and contamination control measures, including medical examination, testing, counseling, treatment, vaccination, decontamination of persons or animals, isolation, quarantine, vector control, condemnation of food supplies, and inspection and closure of facilities, consistent with those indicated in the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, 20th edition, published by the American Public Health Association, or other measures he or she deems necessary based on his or her professional judgment, current standards of practice and the best available medical and scientific information.
(4) A local health department should seek agreements as necessary with tribal governments, with federal authorities or with state agencies or institutions of higher education that empower the local health officer to conduct investigations and institute control measures in accordance with WAC 246-100-040 on tribal lands, federal enclaves and military bases, and the campuses of state institutions. State institutions include, but are not limited to, state-operated colleges and universities, schools, hospitals, prisons, group homes, juvenile detention centers, institutions for juvenile delinquents, and residential habilitation centers.
[Statutory Authority: RCW 43.20.050. WSR 15-05-014, § 246-100-036, filed 2/6/15, effective 3/9/15; WSR 03-17-022, § 246-100-036, filed 8/13/03, effective 9/13/03. Statutory Authority: RCW 43.20.050 (2)(d), 70.05.050, and 70.05.060. WSR 03-05-048, § 246-100-036, filed 2/13/03, effective 2/13/03. Statutory Authority: RCW 43.20.050. WSR 00-23-120, § 246-100-036, filed 11/22/00, effective 12/23/00. Statutory Authority: RCW 70.24.125 and 70.24.130. WSR 99-17-077, § 246-100-036, filed 8/13/99, effective 9/1/99. Statutory Authority: RCW 70.24.022, [70.24].340 and Public Law 104-146. WSR 97-15-099, § 246-100-036, filed 7/21/97, effective 7/21/97. Statutory Authority: RCW 43.20.050 and 70.24.130. WSR 92-02-019 (Order 225B), § 246-100-036, filed 12/23/91, effective 1/23/92. Statutory Authority: RCW 43.20.050. WSR 91-02-051 (Order 124B), recodified as § 246-100-036, filed 12/27/90, effective 1/31/91. Statutory Authority: Chapter 70.24 RCW. WSR 89-02-008 (Order 324), § 248-100-036, filed 12/27/88. Statutory Authority: RCW 43.20.050. WSR 88-07-063 (Order 308), § 248-100-036, filed 3/16/88.]