abstract:In epidemiology, contact tracing is the identification and diagnosis of persons who may have come into contact with an infected person. For sexually transmitted diseases, this is generally limited to sexual partners and can fall under the heading of partner services, but for highly virulent diseases such as Ebola and tuberculosis, a thorough contact tracing would require information regarding casual contacts.
Is the private sector willing to provide such expertise, to perform 'contact-tracing', the unique NHS service which helps us track the spread of pathogens and identify outbreaks?
It would be so easy for the 25, 000 people in the UK who do not know they have HIV to become 50, 000 as a result of non-targeted testing and the demise of contact-tracing.