UN praises US, South Korea for lifting HIV ban
Source: Agencies |
January 6, 2010, Wednesday
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THE United Nations praised the United States and South Korea on Monday for lifting travel bans on people with HIV and urged 57 other countries with travel restrictions to end them quickly.
President Barack Obama announced in October that the US would overturn a 22-year-old travel ban against people with HIV, and the new rule eliminating the ban came into force on Monday. South Korea eliminated travel restrictions for people with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, on January 1.
Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, which coordinates the UN's AIDS response, called the policy changes "a victory for human rights on two sides of the globe."
In the US, the ban has kept out thousands of students, tourists and refugees and has complicated the adoption of children with HIV. No major international AIDS conference has been held in the US since 1993, because HIV-positive activists and researchers could not enter the country.
In 1987, at a time of widespread fear and ignorance about HIV, the Department of Health and Human Services added HIV to the list of communicable diseases that disqualified a person from entering the US. The department tried in 1991 to reverse its decision but was opposed by Congress, which went the other way two years later and made HIV infection the only medical condition explicitly listed under immigration law as grounds for inadmissibility to the country.
"It's a step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment, it's a step that will keep families together, and it's a step that will save lives," Obama said. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Obama in October and applauded South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak on Monday "for his country's leadership in ending restrictions towards people living with HIV that have no public health benefit."
"I repeat my call to all other countries with such discriminatory restrictions to take steps to remove them at the earliest," Ban said in a statement.
President Barack Obama announced in October that the US would overturn a 22-year-old travel ban against people with HIV, and the new rule eliminating the ban came into force on Monday. South Korea eliminated travel restrictions for people with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, on January 1.
Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, which coordinates the UN's AIDS response, called the policy changes "a victory for human rights on two sides of the globe."
In the US, the ban has kept out thousands of students, tourists and refugees and has complicated the adoption of children with HIV. No major international AIDS conference has been held in the US since 1993, because HIV-positive activists and researchers could not enter the country.
In 1987, at a time of widespread fear and ignorance about HIV, the Department of Health and Human Services added HIV to the list of communicable diseases that disqualified a person from entering the US. The department tried in 1991 to reverse its decision but was opposed by Congress, which went the other way two years later and made HIV infection the only medical condition explicitly listed under immigration law as grounds for inadmissibility to the country.
"It's a step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment, it's a step that will keep families together, and it's a step that will save lives," Obama said. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Obama in October and applauded South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak on Monday "for his country's leadership in ending restrictions towards people living with HIV that have no public health benefit."
"I repeat my call to all other countries with such discriminatory restrictions to take steps to remove them at the earliest," Ban said in a statement.
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