What is the difference between an 'anonymous' and 'confidential' HIV test?

What is the difference between an 'anonymous' and 'confidential' HIV test?

Charles Farthing (Chief of Medicine, AIDS Healthcare Foundation) gives expert video advice on: What are the symptoms of HIV?; Where can I be tested for HIV?; Is there a home test kit for HIV? and more...

An anonymous HIV test is where a number is taken rather than the name, and the laboratory and clinic do not even know the name of the person who is having the HIV test. A confidential HIV test is where the name is known, but the laboratory and the clinic promise not to tell anybody the name. Anonymous testing is probably not necessary in this day and age; it came about because of all the fear and scare and stigma of an HIV diagnosis, and the fear that clinics would leak names. However, I've been looking after HIV for twenty years and I don't think I've ever known a confidential HIV test to leak the name of a patient and someone's confidentiality be blown as a result. So, I would not think that anonymous HIV testing is any longer necessary. People who let their diagnosis become known usually do it themselves by telling people they shouldn't tell that they're HIV positive; it doesn't come from the hospital or from the laboratory, but rather from the person themselves disclosing this information. So, we always advise HIV positive people: be careful who you disclose this diagnosis to, don't just tell everybody. Don't tell your boss, for example, if you're boss is going to be discriminatory and sack you.