Chris Blattman

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Uganda to criminalize intentional HIV transmission

From Uganda’s Daily Monitor, the new bill will

criminalize the intentional transmission of HIV, guarantee access to treatment for HIV-positive people and provide protection against discrimination for people living with the disease.

Via the Kaiser Network, who note

The bill encourages HIV-positive people to inform their partners about their status and follow prevention and treatment measures to prevent transmission of the virus.

The draft law also recommends that health workers notify the sexual partners of people who test positive for HIV if the individual “has been given reasonable opportunity to inform their partner(s) of their HIV-positive status and has failed to do so.”

…it also would require mandatory testing for people charged with drug abuse, illegal possession of medical instruments, sexual offenses and commercial sex work. In addition, the draft law would permit a court to order an individual to undergo an HIV test, with or without his or her consent.

The closet libertarian in me chafes at some of these measures, but in reality I think it’s a sensible response to a resurgent pandemic. Two decades of open public health messaging have made a huge impact in the country–witness how easy it is to talk to young people about condom use and multiple partners, and how difficult it is just a few steps across the Kenyan border. But billboards and school programs may not be enough.

Then again, the above exhausts my knowledge of public health. Any informed readers want to correct me?

4 Responses

  1. when are we going the have the cure for HIV/AIDS ? we are living on an age with very high technology but still we have not found a cure for this disease.

  2. Criminalizing HIV transmission just doesn’t work. Everyone can agree that intentional transmission is criminal, and existing laws can prosecute it when it can be demonstrated (and have, with many many examples of discrimination and arbitrariness), but the bottom line is that these laws just do not protect individuals or advance public health.

    See: http://www.jiasociety.org/content/11/1/7

  3. “The closet libertarian in me chafes at some of these measures, but in reality I think it’s a sensible response to a resurgent pandemic.”

    I agree, but lean more towards the latter. However, there’s also the issue of perverse incentives. You can only intentionally transmit HIV if you KNOW that you have HIV. One way around this law is to avoid testing (and thus knowledge of true HIV+/- status). I would like to think people aren’t so irresponsible, but…

    The way it works properly is with mandatory HIV testing, which is both difficult (maybe to the point of being impossible) and likely to met with outrage by the libertarian-minded.

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