The Washington State Board of Health (Board) has authority to adopt rules for the prevention and control of infectious and noninfectious diseases in Washington in order to protect the health and well-being of the public by controlling communicable and certain other diseases.
Engrossed Substitute House Bill (ESHB) 1551, Modernizing the control of certain communicable diseases, passed by the legislature during the 2020 session, modernizes the state’s control of communicable disease laws by:
- Ending statutory HIV/AIDs exceptionalism
- Reducing HIV-related stigma,
- Defelonizing HIV exposure, and
- Removing barriers to HIV testing
The bill, which took effect June 2020, provides the Board with new rulemaking duties to consider possible revisions to the rule to assure consistency with the bill’s requirements. The changes impact other standards such as HIV training and education requirements and blood-borne pathogen testing in occupational exposures.
To assure the rule is consistent with the law required the Board to change its Notifiable Conditions rules. Minor editorial changes were incorporated into the proposed rule that was filed in February 2021. A public hearing for the proposed notifiable conditions rule was held at the March 10, 2021 public meeting where the Board voted to adopt the proposed rule and incorporate the changes. Read more available on the Communicable and Certain Other Diseases rule web page, or view rule documents from the March 10 public meeting.
