Public health registrar Dr Catriona Murray interviewed a dozen professionals with expertise in contact tracing for STIs as part of her public health masters degree at the University of Otago (Wellington), and believed the Covid-19 system could improve outcomes for patients.
Dr Murray said many patients preferred to tell contacts themselves and needed to be helped to do this with good information and support.
But studies indicated STI contact tracing, also called partner notification, was often incomplete and the process was under-resourced.
"The health professionals working in primary care, sexual health, public health and research who were interviewed for the study, overwhelmingly agreed that more resourcing, support and training is needed to improve STI partner notification."
She said a centralised system would enable a more consistent and comprehensive approach to partner notification for STIs and alleviate some of the burden on already stretched clinicians.
"Aotearoa has ongoing high rates of curable STIs, including chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis.
"We need more resources to reduce the high and inequitable rates of STIs and to allow us to rapidly respond to new or emerging infections that can be spread via sexual contact."
However, she said the health professionals interviewed were concerned about the trust and privacy needed to run a national contact-tracing service.
They also stressed the importance of local area knowledge and the need for cultural safety for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, and for Māori and Pasifika peoples.
"High levels of trust are clearly a key part of successful partner notification, and for some populations that might be best achieved through trusted local providers who could be supported, as needed, by central expertise."
Although the objective was a simple one, Dr Murray said partner notification for STIs could be difficult to carry out successfully — particularly in cases where there were complexities that may require cultural, medical and/or legal expertise.
Patient safety was always a priority and contacts were not informed if there was a risk of violence.
She said there was a lack of STI services in rural areas of New Zealand, and a national STI contact-tracing workforce could provide a consistent, specialist telehealth service, either directly to cases and contacts or by supporting local clinicians.
"We may get the best outcomes through the establishment of a centralised STI contact-tracing service that also provides training and support for local practitioners."
