Abstract

PIP: At the 9th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa (ICASA), issues concerning the legal and ethical aspects of HIV/AIDS are brought to the fore. Throughout the world, people living with HIV/AIDS are experiencing various forms of human rights abuses including testing abuses, lack of confidentiality, refusal to treat patients, dismissal of HIV-positive employees without sufficient reason, invasion of privacy, and placement of infected subjects in quarantine. This discrimination and stigmatization is not justified and gravely compromises the considerable efforts already made in fighting the epidemic. Participants suggested that the law should be used to support the authority of individuals infected with HIV/AIDS. Legislation should follow a double objective: it should know that victims of AIDS should be protected and supported, and it should clearly indicate what the responsibility of seropositive persons vis a vis society could be. The controversy of whether it is necessary to enact a legislation concerning HIV/AIDS, however, remained. While some people believed that the existing legal framework could be exploited to develop the necessary protocol concerning the responsibilities and rights of patients, an opposing viewpoint is that current legislation should not be applied in solving the problems associated with HIV/AIDS. But the important interest is that numerous recommendations of the ICASA will not remain simple declarations of intention, but translated into correct actions.