Professor advocates law to protect AIDS patients

In an inside page story, the Ghanaian Times reports Professor Gilford Amarh Ashitey, of the School of Public Health of the University of Ghana, as advocating a legislation which will make it an offence for public and private institutions to discriminate against an HIV/AIDS person.

He is quoted as saying, "marginalisation and discrimination against AIDS sufferers are hindering the fight against the disease, but with such a legislation in place, the public can be educated to go for voluntary screening and counselling". Prof. Ashitey was delivering his 30 years in academia anniversary lecture on: "Public Health in Public Wealth - The challenges of the Ghanaian Public Health Physician in the first two decades of the third millennium".

He is quoted as saying that "people, who are HIV positive can be educated to adopt appropriate sexual lifestyles and help reduce unintentional spread of AIDS", adding that wilful spread of AIDS if proven, is already a serious criminal offence.