I came across this article and found it interesting. I had no idea that America has banned anyone from entering the US if they have HIV/AIDS. It seems rather archaic to ban anyone because they have the disease. It has no public health threat. I am glad that this ban is being lifted.
(AFP) – 2 days ago
UNITED NATIONS — UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed US President Barack Obama's removal of a decades-old travel ban on HIV-positive visitors, and urged other countries to do the same."I congratulate President Obama on announcing the removal of the travel restrictions for people living with HIV from entering the United States," Ban said on Saturday in a statement released by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS."I urge all other countries with such restrictions to take steps to remove them at the earliest."Obama announced his administration would overturn on Monday a controversial US policy that had been in place since 1987. The ban on foreign nationals with HIV/AIDS visiting the United States will effectively be lifted early next year."Such restrictions, strongly opposed by UNAIDS, are discriminatory and do not protect public health," the program said. Ban has made the lifting of stigma and discrimination connected with AIDS a personal mission, first calling on countries to lift their travel restrictions in 2008 at a UN meeting on the disease. The travel restrictions "should fill us all with shame," Ban told a global AIDS conference in August 2008.According to UNAIDS, Ban's home country of South Korea is "in the last stages of removing travel restrictions," while China and Ukraine are among countries considering following suit."Placing travel restrictions on people living with HIV has no public health justification. It is also a violation of human rights," said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe. On Friday, as he signed a bill reauthorizing funding for a federal program providing HIV-related health care, Obama announced the repeal of the travel ban, describing the 22-year-old policy as a "decision rooted in fear rather than fact.""If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," Obama said."And that's why on Monday, my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year."Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, signed legislation last year that removed HIV from a list of diseases "of public health significance" that effectively barred any person infected with HIV from entering the United States. But the law was not implemented by the US Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates US immigration authorities in some instances.
It's hard to believe a policy like this could have been in place for 22 years. And even harder to believe it was passed in the first place.. How could a travel restriction on HIV+ people benefit public health? And how would they know who was HIV+ anyway? Lifting this ban (rooted in fear, as they state) is definitely a step in the right direction. We should educate people about HIV.. not make them afraid of it and the people living with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this is definitely a step in teh right direction. This also allows for people that are positive for HIV to access more opportunities for research and help from other nations instead of forcing them to live in a nation that cannot provide the proper aid.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I was unaware of the ongoing 22-year ban of HIV travelers into the US. I can see the rationale for enacting the ban in 1987 when the mode of transmission was unclear, however overtime it has been scientifically determined and globally accepted that the virus is not spread by casual contact. This being said, the ban’s existence today seems to be a violation of human rights and conflict in addressing public health needs pertaining to those individuals. On the other hand I can see how lifting the ban and allowing HIV positive individuals seeking treatment in the US could impose health cost on tax paying US citizens (like ourselves). Though correct me if I am wrong but isn’t HIV treatment generally cheaper and widely available in other countries besides the US? In addition though medical exams have been required for travels by us immigration officials what about individuals that can hide their HIV status?
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ReplyDeleteThis is great news for many refugees who are granted refugee status in the US but later are denied to enter the country if they are HIV+. NO, those medications are very expensive for many developing countries. Few countries have the antiretrovirals that are needed and most of the time the people that need them cannot afford them. The US through PEPFAR has tried to reach many HIV+ people in developing countries and it is great but not enough at all. If you think about it though, the only way (at least for now) to slow down transmission or even stop the epidemic is to find every HIV infected person and treat them. With HAART most people reduce their viremia and would not be able to transmit the disease 99.5% of the time. Which can be a means to end HIV. This of course would only happen if the developed countries and pharmaceutical companies would offer to treat other people in developing countries who would otherwise would not be able to have access to the medications.
The lifting of the ban on HIV+ travelers is a win for human rights and can help both the travelers and researchers. I'm sure studies have been done to group the carious strains of HIV, but now having people here form various countries and hence different strains will help in the development of new and possibly more effective treatments. I hope the increase in strain diversity will help research. On a more cautious note, various strains in the population could make treatment harder for American doctors when treatments are released. lets hope any new strains coming from around the world don't enter and increase the virulence of the disease through the mixing of strains.
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