The BC Prosecution Service has issued revised guidelines to prosecutors for when they can consider criminal charges for a person who failed to disclose their HIV positive status to their sexual partner.

Spokesman Dan McLaughlin says it’s an effort to balance the rights of a person with HIV with that of public safety.

He says it also reflects medical advances and improved scientific understanding of how the virus is transmitted during sexual acts.

“We are looking to situations where a person with HIV is taking appropriate steps to manage the risk of transmission,” he said. “We talk about situations where there is a sexual act if a condom is correctly used, and there is also a low viral load.”

“that’s the test that was set out in the well known Supreme Court of Canada decision in Mabior which dealt with this.”

McLaughlin says prosecutors will also examine whether the person living with HIV has accepted and adhered to a regime of anti-retroviral therapy, and maintains a suppressed viral load of less than 200 copies per millilitre of blood.

“We have to be satisfied that the sexual act involved either an actual transmission of HIV or a realistic possibility of transmission of HIV,” he added. “That’s key.”

McLaughlin says that is in keeping with the latest medical literature that examines the risk or transmission of the disease.