PARIS, Nov 16 (AFP) - Moves to punish people who knowingly transmit the AIDS virus may paradoxically help the disease to spread, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Fearing criminalisation, people at risk become more reluctant to test for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and may thus spread the virus unwittingly, it says.
Numerous countries have laws which make it a crime to knowingly transmit HIV, the cause of AIDS.
In a landmark case in Scotland in 1994, a man who knew he had HIV was given a five-year jail term for infecting a young mother of three by repeatedly having unprotected sex with her and failing to inform her he had the virus.
A computer model run by Britain's Medical Research Council's Biostatistics Unit suggests the case could trigger a huge slump in HIV testing.
"Even a modest decline (of 25 percent) in the uptake of HIV testing by those who are actually infected could herald a one-third increase in new, sexually-transmitted HIV infections," according to the unit's estimate, published in next Saturday's issue of the BMJ.
If the fall in HIV testing is in the order of 40 percent, the number of new infections "might also double," it says.
The so-called Glenochil case ripped a hole in efforts to prevent HIV transmission by boosting awareness through self-responsibility, it adds.
By having a test, a person must by law disclose his HIV status if he or she is found to carry the virus, or possibly face going to prison.
But by not having a test, he or she can escape prosecution by pleading ignorance.
"Far from protecting the public, the Glenochil judgement has endorsed abrogation of individual responsibility in sexual partnerships by asserting a legal duty of disclosure on the infected partner," it adds.
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