PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe says compulsory tests could help curb the spread of HIV, he told Chinese television in an interview at the United Nations in New York.
Mugabe, who revealed in 2008 that his family had been affected by the epidemic, told CCTV that compulsory vaccinations have been carried out before for diseases such as smallpox, measles and swine flu – and wondered why a testing programme for HIV could not be agreed regionally or internationally.
Stressing that the views were his own, Mugabe said: “Once upon a time when I was young, we had the entirety of the population vaccinated against smallpox.
“If it was compulsory for the smallpox, for precautions, if it was right then why is it not right now?
“Essentially, it is the same; the lives, the health of people, prevention of death — death of communities in a calamitous way.”
Mugabe said the compulsory testing would only be used by health professionals to identify those in need of drug treatment while helping individuals, particularly those with HIV, to make behavioural changes.
He told the English language TV station: “... the results will remain between the doctor and the person being tested and are not made public. This will determine who is carrying it and who is not.
“But then you have this human rights thing that says you cannot force someone to be tested and in that regard it (compulsory testing) is not good.
“I don’t think that it’s a violation of human rights. If there is any justification for it (testing), it is because it is a measure to justify stopping the spread of an epidemic.
“At the moment that’s the main inhibition on the part of the government ... that we don’t have the courage to force testing and the law does not allow it.
“My feeling is that the law should be amended ... but this must be done regionally and internationally.
“I’m of the view that HIV and Aids, being so devastating an epidemic, governments of the region — perhaps universally — should agree that it’s not a violation of rights to subject people to medical examinations.”
In 2008, Mugabe described HIV/Aids as "one of the greatest challenges facing our nation", adding: “Most people have been affected, and that includes my extended family.”
Mugabe said in the CCTV interview granted on the sidelines of the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly that “the fear of discrimination should not count as being of greater weight than the need to prevent the spread of the disease across the community, across the nation.”
Mugabe’s radical idea is sure to attract debate among Aids activists and ordinary people – many of whom have lost close family to the disease.
Zimbabwe has seen a decline in new HIV infections from a high of 25 percent in 2000 to the current 14 percent. In 2005, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) indicated that approximately 1,6 million adults 15 years and older were living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe.