68-5-102 - Physicians to notify health authorities and recipients of dead bodies of communicable disease or AIDS. - Tennessee Statutes

68-5-102. Physicians to notify health authorities and recipients of dead bodies of communicable disease or AIDS.

Whenever any physician, surgeon or practitioner of medicine knows or suspects that any person whom the physician, surgeon or practitioner of medicine has been called to visit, or who has been brought to the physician, surgeon or practitioner of medicine for examination, or any other suspicious information received relative thereto, is infected, or even so suspected, with any communicable disease, except venereal disease, such physician, surgeon or practitioner of medicine shall immediately notify the health authorities of the town or county in which the diseased person or persons are found. In the event of the death of such person, the physician, surgeon or practitioner of medicine shall also notify, or cause to be notified, at the time of delivery, the person to whom the body is delivered of the known or suspected communicable, contagious or infectious disease, including acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), so that the necessary and proper precautions can be taken in the handling, preparation for disposition or disposition of the body.

[Acts 1905, ch. 519, § 2; Shan., § 3113; Code 1932, § 5790; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), § 53-605; Acts 1986, ch. 559, § 1.]