It is heartening to note that President Bush will today seek an approval of the Congress to the $30 billion fund for US AIDS program. The doubling of the amount for a great cause is indeed great news for the millions of people who are living with AIDS. The increase in the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) would provide lifesaving treatment to 2.5 million people across globe. The program’s original five-year mandate will expire in September 2008. Bush’s plan would extend it to 2013. But then the plight of the people with AIDS will not end by merely handsome financial grant as fight against AIDS does involve vital issues of human rights and human dignity and United States must use its influence in ensuring dignified life for the people with AIDS.

Not by Grants Alone Ensure Human Rights for People with AIDS

The tragic stoning to death of a woman suspected of being HIV positive in India few years back was not an isolated case. The first anti-discrimination law appeared in the United States, starting with the Los Angles AIDS Discrimination Ordinance in June 1985.

This relationship between prevention of AIDS and human rights may be examined in two ways. First, there are pressures and issues related to human rights norms that are created by the choice or manner of implementation of public health policies. Secondly, it has now become clear that social discrimination in all its manifestations does create an increased vulnerability to HIV infection. Thus the efforts to protect human rights are extremely important.
Protection against epidemics is one of the main tasks. In addition, public health has been accepted as a legitimate ground for limiting human rights in international human rights law. Incorporating human rights in public health issues has not been easy. Public health developed through centuries by relying on coercion, compulsion and restriction does not readily adjust to the requirements of human rights.

Human Rights Issues in the Fight against AIDS-

i. Observance of Human Rights in Public Health Policies

ii. Social Discriminations increases vulnerability to AIDS

iii. Restrictions on the movement of the People

iv. Compulsory Hospitalization

v. Restrictions on the Sexual behavior

vi. Restrictions on Occupations

The ways in which several countries have reacted to the AIDS epidemic have created a lot of human rights problem. Coercive or restrictive AIDS control has some impact on human rights. Public health surveillance which has to record the personal identity of infected persons comes into conflict with human right to privacy. Similarly, people identified as carriers are to be subjected to isolation/ quarantine. Even a classification of disease can lead to mandatory examination or hospitalization, depending on local or national disease control legislation.

There were various laws empowering public health authorities to place legal restrictions on those with AIDS that have led to violation of human rights. Some of these are:
(i) restriction on the movement of persons across national frontiers;

(ii) restrictions on freedom of internal travel due to compulsory hospitalization or other reasons such as quarantine or isolation;

(iii) restrictions on sexual behavior;

(iv) restrictions on freedom of occupation; and

(v) other miscellaneous forms of restrictions (e.g., marriage contracts).

Discriminatory Social Environment

Another major area of relationship between human rights and public health responses arose when it was realized that a discriminatory social environment does prove to be counter-productive for the HIV information/education and prevention program. Threats and coercion towards HIV-infected people had the effect of driving people away from the health and social services created to help prevent HIV transmission.

Exclusion from the mainstream of society, or discrimination on grounds of race/ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, or sexual preference led to an increase in the risk of HIV infection. Employers, landlords, school personnel, and even staff of some health care institutions showed at times exclude people with AIDS.