Days before travelers worldwide are to begin arriving for Shanghai’s world exposition, China has lifted a two-decade ban on travel to the country by people who carry the virus that causes AIDS or who have other sexually transmitted diseases.
The action also removed a longstanding ban on travel to China by people with leprosy.
The government approved amendments to a 1986 law governing quarantines and a 1989 law regulating entry by foreigners, removing prohibitions related to people with HIV, which causes AIDS, China’s State Council reported on its Web site late on Tuesday.
The council’s standing committee approved the changes on April 19, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) signed decrees putting them into effect on Saturday, the council said.
With the changes, the ban on travel is now officially limited only to people with infectious tuberculosis, serious mental disorders and “infectious diseases which could possibly greatly harm the public health.”
China has temporarily lifted the ban on HIV-positive travelers for major events in the past, but the revision of longstanding laws indicates that the latest change will be permanent.
The China Daily quoted Chinese Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qunan (毛群安) as saying that the ministry had been working to permanently remove the prohibition since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Between 450,000 and 1 million Chinese are infected with the HIV virus, UNICEF said. Roughly 75,000 of those have developed AIDS.
The proportion of HIV-infected people in China is far below that of neighboring countries — Vietnam, for example, records about 20,000 AIDS deaths a year — but health experts have worried that China’s HIV population may be poised to expand.
The infection is most common among sex workers, migrant workers and residents of some border areas, like Yunnan Province, where drugs are smuggled into the country.
In January, the US dropped its own ban on visitors who are HIV positive. The ban had been in effect for 22 years.
US President Barack Obama said he was fulfilling a promise he had made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”
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