AIDS activist groups and HIV-positive people around the world had extra reason to cheer during their New Year’s celebrations last week. On January 1, South Korea dropped restrictions on travel to that country by people infected with the HIV virus, while the United States followed suit on January 4.

United States President Barack Obama had announced last October that the U.S. travel ban against people with HIV would be eliminated early in 2010. The controversial ban had been in place since 1987, and was the only medical condition specified in U.S. immigration law as grounds for inadmissibility to the country.

AIDS activists believe that thousands of travellers from Canada and other countries were denied entry into the U.S.A. during the past decade because of their HIV-positive status. Although many HIV-positive people continued to travel to the U.S. despite the ban – for business trips, family visits and vacations – they risked being stopped at the border and sent back home if U.S. Customs & Immigrations officials learned they were HIV-positive, or discovered HIV medication in their luggage. Although it took years of lobbying by activists and politicians – and the election of a new U.S. president – to finally get the travel ban rescinded, the repeal couldn’t have happened at a better time. With intensified border checks, airport security searches and carry-on baggage restrictions imposed in the wake of the attempted Christmas Day terrorist bombing of a U.S. airliner approaching Detroit, HIV-positive travellers would have had a tougher time keeping their meds and their health status secret when entering the United States.

Nevertheless, the New York Times notes that HIV-positive people still face restrictions on travel to at least 57 other countries, including China, Cuba, Egypt, North Korea, Israel, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Iraq and Russia. The United Nations is urging those countries to repeal their restrictions, also.

Sources: NewYorkTimes.com
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