Govt to make law to check discrimination of AIDS patients

New Delhi, Dec 19 (UNI) Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss today expressed concern over the treatment being denied to an HIV positive person in a Delhi hospital recently and said that a Bill to combat stigma and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS would be brought in the Budget Session of Parliament.

''The bill is in the final stages with some recommendations being asked from the Lawyers Collective. We are hopeful that it will be passed in the Budget Session,'' Dr Ramadoss said at a press conference here.

Incidentally, President A P J Abdul Kalam on World AIDS Day on December 1 this year had asked the lawmakers to bring such a law soon.

Regarding the incident in which an HIV/AIDS patients requiring dialysis died in a Delhi hospital recently, the Health Minister said the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has been asked to look into the matter.

However, till the time a law to tackle stigma and discrimination came into force, a self-enforced Code of Conduct would have to be put into place, he said.

Asked whether the tobacco lobby would allow the government to enforce the skull picture on cigerette packets, Dr Ramadoss said that reduction in the use of tobacco was the singlemost important step to improve the world's health. He said that under the Anti tobacco law, there was a provision for pictorial depiction of cancer and other harmful effects on cigerette packets which would be enforced soon.

He said a state-of-the-art Tobacco Testing Lab would be set up in Ahmedabad to test the nicotine and tar contents in various tobacco products and mentioning it on the packets of tobacco products to increase awareness among people. This laboratory would not only be the first of its kind in India, but also in the South Asia region, he said.

Dr Julie Louise Gerberding, Director of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in the US, said India had done significant surveillance work to check Avian Influenza in the country. The country trained not only human health experts but also animal health experts and agricultural workers to contain Avian Influenza.

Dr Ramadoss and Dr Gerberding were addressing presspersons after Indo-US Joint Round Table discussion on polio and other diseases.

The discussion was held between Health Ministry officials and a high level delegation of CDC Atlanta on the Indo-US agreement in infectious and environmental diseases. The deliberations focused on polio, Avian Influenza, maternal and child health issues and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.

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