Travel and HIV
Australian News
Responding to reporting that there had been 70 HIV-positive immigrants into the state of Victoria over the last two years, the Australian prime minister said: “"I think we should have the most stringent possible conditions in relation to that nationwide, and I know the health minister is concerned about that and is examining ways of tightening things up," Mr Howard said.”
But Mr Howard’s figures didn’t stand up to closer scrutiny as 50 of the migrants were diagnosed in other Australian states, and of the remaining 20 who were diagnosed overseas, eleven were either Australian or New Zealand citizens and had an automatic right of entry to the country.
Australia currently tests all immigrants applying for permanent residence, but a positive result is not grounds for refusal of entry. Most individuals with HIV are rejected because they may pose a burden to the public health services, but individuals with guaranteed employment in Australia would not be affected.
Short-term visitors to Australia are not affected by the regulations, unlike entry restrictions covering the United States, which impose a blanket ban on visits to the United States by HIV-positive people unless they obtain a special visa waiver, although President Bush recently announced that the process for issuing these waivers would be speeded up and relaxed to allow visits for tourism
With thanks to NAM
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US should end HIV travel ban now
By Gus Cairns
27 April, 2007
An American think-tank has urged the US government to delay no further in ending the requirement for people with HIV to declare their status and get a special visa before they enter the USA.
Gay.com readers may be under the impression the ban has already been lifted, as George W Bush announced that he intended to on World AIDS Day, 1 December, last year.
But since then we have heard little from the White House, and the US policy group, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), met in Washington DC last week to discuss possible ways of relaxing the ban. It produced a report urging action and outlining ways forward.
The report’s co-author, Helene Gayle, who herself used to work for the US government’s Centers for Disease Control, said that the US travel ban was inconsistent with the international leadership role on HIV that George W Bush and his government has demonstrated they want to by adopting measures such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
"It is just one more thing where we are out of line and inconsistent with what we are trying to do," she said.
At the CSIS meeting the report’s other co-author, Dr Phillip Nieburg, said that our HIV knowledge base had grown since 1993 and that it was now clear that HIV is not an easily spread contagious disease.
There was no justification for the law in terms of public health, he said. As for worries about the cost of treating someone with HIV who ended up in the USA stranded or seeking asylum, he said that a blanket ban on anyone with HIV was inherently discriminatory, as other costly chronic health problems are not singled out for a blanket ban but are handled on a case by case basis.
Louis Sullivan, was Secretary of Health and Human Services when the law was introduced in 1993, against his advice. He told the meeting that the introduction of effective treatments and the greater availability of treatment in developing countries made it, he said, "Truly a propitious time to try and end these restrictions."
The problem has been that in order to reverse the ban altogether, legislation will be required. The original ban was instituted in 1993 when Senator Jesse Helms ensured that HIV was specifically added to the list of communicable diseases that barred you form entry to the USA if you were infected with them.
Part of the challenge is that legally it was much easier to add a clause to this list saying “and this specifically include anyone with HIV” than it will be to replace it with a clause saying “but this does not include people with HIV” – because many legislators will want to ensure that the ban on people who genuinely do constitute ‘a danger to public health’ remains.
If HIV is removed from the list by legislation, it will also apply to both short-term tourist visas and long-term immigrant visas – and legislators are thought to want to continue to ensure that some pretty hard questions are asked if someone with HIV wishes to live and work in the USA about their ability to pay for their medical care.
The simplest way of relaxing the aspect of the ban that affects most people would be for the president to issue an Executive Order saying that tourists, defined as people staying for less than 30 days, are exempted from the HIV ban.
But it is thought that a rear guard in the White House is uneasy about the idea of letting people on without any knowledge of their HIV status (even though this is effectively this situation already, as studies have revealed that the majority of HIV-positive tourists simply lie on their entry forms and hope for the best).
The situation was not helped when, after the international AIDS conference in Toronto last summer, more than 150 HIV positive people attending the conference chose to remain in Canada and seek asylum, claiming that they feared discrimination or worse in their own countries. Some commentators have said that the White House will still require people with HIV to declare their status while lifting an automatic ban, at least for tourist visas.
Tom Walsh, who is currently a member of the Office of the US Global AIDS Coordinator and who was in the meeting’s audience, would not be drawn on when the ban might be lifted.
He told the meeting: "The process is under way, it is complex, and I wish there was more that I could say."
With thanks to Gus Cairns & Gay.com/HIV News
