Swedish presidency should pressure Obama on HIV travel

3.56.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 11th Jun 2009

After a long campaign last summer US president Bush signed a law that promised to remove the ban on non-US citizens living with HIV travelling to the US. The arrangements put in place however only allow for a temporary visa of 30 days to be issued under the condition that the HIV positive person's activities while in the US do not present a risk to public health.

London MEP and Liberal democrat European justice and human rights spokeswoman Sarah Ludford said:

"I campaigned for travellers with HIV to be eligible under the visa waiver programme and to lift a ban that the US shared with only 12 other countries, including Iraq, China, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. In effect they still need jump through several hoops and even then can only come to the US for 30 days at a time, after following a discriminatory and intrusive procedure"

"The Czech Republic has not been forthcoming in pushing the US to actually achieve full visa free travel for HIV patients. I call on the Swedes to do a better job."