Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) the Department of Defense's (DOD) actions to prevent and control the spread of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the military; (2) how AIDS has affected DOD operations and medical treatment facilities; and (3) DOD plans for dealing with increased incidence of AIDS.
GAO found that: (1) in October 1985, DOD developed a comprehensive approach for dealing with AIDS in the military, which included testing all active duty and reserve personnel and civilian applicants for military service, educating personnel about AIDS, and providing necessary health care to infected personnel; (2) as of August 1989, DOD had tested over 90 percent of its active duty personnel at least once, and planned to retest them periodically; (3) DOD provided various educational and counseling programs to help control the spread of AIDS, but failed to focus on modifying high-risk behaviors; (4) the prevalence of AIDS had a minimal impact on overall DOD operations, but a significant impact on military hospitals' provision of care to infected members; and (5) DOD had no plans to provide the resources needed to deal with the expected increase in demand for AIDS-related health care services.
