(Adds background) SANTIAGO, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Chile's public health system apparently failed to notify at least 512 people that they were infected with the HIV virus, the health minister said on Thursday amid a growing national AIDS scandal. Alvaro Erazo said that in 244 cases, the infected people were not located by health officials. And in 268 cases there was no evidence efforts were even made to find them. "With current information it is not possible to be sure that people identified in the ... groups have not been informed, only that there are no records of that happening," he told the lower house of Congress. "What is clear is that there are service (areas) that are not complying as they should in the follow-up and notification of these cases." Chile's previous health minister resigned after it emerged that a hospital in northern Chile failed to notify dozens of patients that they had tested positive for HIV. Three of those people have since died. The investigation spread to the rest of the country and authorities have found hundreds of cases where there were no records that people were notified after a blood test showed they were HIV-positive. Before she quit when the scandal broke last month, former health minister Maria Soledad Barria removed the head of medicine, the supervising nurse and the head of the blood bank at a hospital in Iquique in northern Chile pending an investigation of possible negligence. Erazo told lawmakers the government would take immediate action to revise public health procedures and protocol. President Michelle Bachelet's center-left coalition government has been battered by protests and scandals in recent months, helping boost its rightist rivals before what is seen as the toughest presidential race since Chile's return to democracy two decades ago. Bachelet, who trained as a doctor and was a former health minister, is an AIDS expert. The campaign starts next year before Chileans go to the polls in late 2009. By law, Bachelet cannot seek a second consecutive term. Erazo said that in Chile there are 9,901 people infected with HIV, of which 6,407 are being treated. (Reporting by Pav Jordan; Editing by Xavier Briand)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes a speech during a German Aids aid Association reception in Berlin November 13, 2008. REUTERS/Johannes Eisele (GERMANY) ...
