[Sex tourism and AIDS: doctors between duty and powerlessness]

What can a doctor do if he knows that an HIV-positive patient who is refusing antiretroviral therapy is going on a sex tourism holiday to Thailand, for example? A doctor in a moral dilemma could break professional confidentiality in order to protect any sexual partners, but in this case these partners are not known. In practice, the only thing the doctor can do is to talk to the patient about his responsibility to prevent infection of others and to point out the risks of unsafe sex for the patient himself.