• Read the Report
  • Contact Us
Global Commission on HIV and the LawGlobal Commission on HIV and the LawGlobal Commission on HIV and the Law
Menu
  • Background
    • HIV and the Law
    • Commission Overview
    • Commissioners
    • Technical Advisory Group
  • Report
    • 2012 Report
    • 2018 Supplement
  • 10-10-10 Partnership
  • Dialogues
    • Global Dialogue 2018
      • 2018 Supplement
      • Global Dialogue 2018 Videos
    • Global Dialogue 2012
      • Video
      • Photo Gallery
      • Speeches
    • Regional Dialogues
      • Asia-Pacific Regional Dialogue
      • Caribbean
      • Eastern Europe and Central Asia
      • Latin America
      • Africa
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • High Income Countries
      • Civil Society Participation
      • Submissions to the Regional Dialogues
  • Implementation
    • Access to Health Technologies
      • Competition Law Guidance
      • Competition Law Webinar
      • 2022 Supplement
    • Civic Space
    • Digital
      • Guidance on the rights-based and ethical use of digital technologies
    • Programmes
      • Being LGBTI in Asia
      • Challenging stigma and discrimination in the Caribbean
      • Guidance for Prosecutors on HIV-related Criminal Cases
      • Improving SRHR for young key populations in Southern Africa
      • International Guidelines on Human Rights & Drug Policy
      • Multi-Country Western Pacific Integrated HIV/TB Project
      • Promoting a rights-based response to HIV in Africa
      • Removing legal barriers in Africa
      • South Asia Global Fund HIV Programme
      • UHC Legal Solutions Network
    • Follow Up
      • Follow Up Stories
      • Legal Environment Assessments
      • Leave No One Behind: Lessons from the Global Commission on HIV and the Law for Agenda 2030
  • Resources
    • eLibrary
      • Capacity Development Toolkits
      • Fact Sheets
      • Legal Environment Assessments, Reviews and Audits
      • National Dialogue Reports
      • Policy and Issue Briefs
      • Research, Discussion Papers and Reports
    • Evaluation of the Global Commission on HIV & the Law
    • Report & Working Papers
      • Read the Report
      • 2018 Supplement
      • Working Papers
      • Submissions
      • Presentations
      • Articles and Speeches from Commissioners
      • Selected Bibliographies
    • Regional Dialogue Resources
      • Asia-Pacific
      • Caribbean
      • Latin America
      • Eastern Europe and Central Asia
      • Africa
      • High Income Countries
    • HIV and the Law Animated Video
  • News
    • News Articles
    • Press Releases
    • Newsletter Archives
  • Past Events

Ukraine lifts ban on HIV-positive visitors

Share this post

Ukraine lifts ban on HIV-positive visitors

Published on Wednesday, 05 August 2015 09:21
Kiev (AFP) – Ukraine said on Wednesday it had removed its restriction on entry and foreign travel for HIV-positive people as part of growing efforts to improve relations with Europe after decades of Moscow rule. The ex-Soviet state’s Deputy Health Minister Igor Pereginets said the repeal of the 14-year ban was one of the conditions put forward by the European Union in the ongoing visa-free travel talks.

“This regulation was repealed (in June) for both Ukrainian citizens travelling abroad and for foreigners entering Ukraine,” Pereginets told AFP. Kiev hopes to strike an unrestricted travel agreement with Brussels next year and apply for EU membership by 2020. Ukraine’s human rights commissioner called the health ministry’s decision “a significant step forward in our defence of human rights.”

“Ukraine now joins some 140 progressive nations that also lifted such bans,” commissioner Valeriya Lutkovska’s office said in a statement posted on Facebook. Ukraine, a nation of about 40 million people that has seen nearly 7,000 killed in a conflict that broke out 16 months ago, has one of Europe’s highest HIV infection rates.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that Ukraine had 290,000 people living with the virus in 2014. It reported a prevalence rate for adults aged 15 to 49 of 1.2 percent — the same as Ethiopia’s and higher than Democratic Republic of the Congo that year.

But UNAIDS also believes the infection rate has been slowing for most of the past decade thanks to state-sponsored awareness programmes.

The global agency has congratulated Ukraine “for being the first country in eastern Europe to reduce new HIV infections between 2001 and 2012.”  

Source: Yahoo News (AFP)

Recent Posts

  • Legal empowerment is key to ending AIDS
  • UNDP and PEPFAR partnership to accelerate the removal of structural barriers to HIV services
  • Successfully expanding the rollout of PrEP in Indonesia
  • Decriminalizing HIV: Scientifically proven and morally correct
  • Ensuring sustainability of community-led HIV service delivery in Thailand

© 2017 [blog-link], All Rights Reserved.