Indian Express explains the coming slew of protective measures — and the one important catch.
Written By Abantika Ghosh Published On: October 7, 2016 12:31 Am
At a protest to urge China, Japan and Germany to step up contributions to the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in New Delhi in May 2016. More than two years after it was introduced in Rajya Sabha, a revised draft of the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2014, which makes discriminating against a person living with HIV/AIDS a punishable offence, was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday.
How will it change things in India’s HIV/AIDS situation?
Why was the Bill needed?
The Bill seeks to give a legislative framework to existing norms of non-discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS — most crucially, making it a legally punishable offence to deny such a person health insurance on the ground of the infection that causes lowering of immunity. The Bill incorporates feedback from stakeholders, and also recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare to which it was referred after being introduced in Rajya Sabha in February 2014.
