JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa dropped plans Thursday to make AIDS a notifiable disease, fearing that sufferers could be vulnerable to attack.

The decision reflected concern that AIDS victims could be ostracized if their status was known in their communities where the disease carries deep social stigmas and has provoked violence against those with the disease.

"Because of the climate of fear and prejudice, people could suffer abuse and serious isolation. People would hesitate to come and be tested if they thought the notification could be tied to them," said health spokeswoman Jo-Anne Collinge.

"Notification is not going to be implemented," she said. AIDS activist Gugu Dlamini was stoned to death on World AIDS Day in 1998 after she declared on television she was HIV-positive.

Countless HIV-positive victims, particularly women and even children, have faced intimidation and in some cases are driven from their homes by neighbors who fear that they can catch the disease by being around people with the disease.

Discrimination against AIDS sufferers is widespread despite years of public education programs aimed at removing myths surrounding the virus. The decision was also made to encourage South Africans to undergo voluntary testing for HIV-AIDS without fear of their anonymity being compromised.

Notification was originally planned by the health department to develop a comprehensive database of how the disease, which already infects more than four million South Africans, was spreading through the country.

Diseases such as cholera, malaria and anthrax are currently notifiable in South Africa. Authorities use the information to better understand patterns of the disease and to plan contingency plans in the event of an outbreak.

Aids Fights Prejudice

Health officials said that society had been slow in changing its attitudes and prejudices toward HIV-AIDS and that procedures to protect patient confidentiality were insufficient.

Many rights groups had objected to notification on the grounds that it infringed the rights of privacy and that it would drive the epidemic further underground.

"Notification is not the issue that will turn the tide of this epidemic around. What has to change is sexual behavior and for all South Africans to be encouraged to test for HIV," said Judi Nwokedi, director of Advocacy Initiative which campaigns for equitable health care.

Under the original plan health workers would be obliged to notify health authorities, the patient and also his or her immediate family.

Many families are reluctant to accept that their loved one is HIV-positive or has died of the disease, preferring to put other causes on the death certificate.

The health department would now rely on surveillance projects to obtain data on the extent of the disease to plan service delivery and to report statistics back to international organizations such as the World Health Organization web .

AIDS groups forecast that up to seven million South Africans could be living with HIV within 10 years, making it the biggest economic threat to the country. Already, around 40 percent of hospital beds are filled with patients who are HIV-positive.