International Travel Restrictions
Entry Restrictions
Find out if a country you are planning to visit has any entry restrictions for people with HIV. It’s generally well known that you cannot visit the USA if you are HIV-positive except under certain circumstances: to attend conferences, to receive medical treatment, to visit close family members or to conduct business. However, this requires applying for a an HIV visa waiver. Even if the waiver is granted – which may take three months or longer to obtain, and requires a personal interview at the US Embassy – the person’s passport is endorsed to show that this person may not enter the US without the waiver, which must be renegotiated on each entry. This also means that people who once apply for an HIV visa waiver will always have to go through this process when they plan to visit the US in the future, irrespective of the fact if the waiver has been granted or not.
Other countries also place restrictions on either temporary or long-term visits by individuals with HIV.
The most reliable way of finding out if a country you want to visit restricts entry by people with HIV is to call the embassy or consulate. If you do this, you should not reveal your name or the fact that you are HIV-positive to them. An HIV advocacy or support agency might be willing to do this for you. You might also consider contacting an HIV service organisation in the country you are thinking of traveling to and enquire about entry restrictions. NAM's AIDS Organisations Worldwide and European AIDS Directory provide listings of major HIV organisations with contact details.
If a country you want to travel to does have entry restrictions, then you need to decide if you want to take the risk of travelling. If you look ill, or are a gay man or an African, you might be more likely to be stopped by customs or immigration, and if they establish that you are HIV-positive, they will probably refuse entry and deport you. Similarly, if you have haemophilia and are travelling with clotting factors or injecting equipment, it’s likely that customs officers will question you about your HIV status.
If you are a citizen of an EU country, or have the right to live in an EU country, then there should be no restrictions on your admittance to another EU member state. But because you receive free HIV care in the UK doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be entitled to it in the country you are visiting.
If you are planning a long-term visit or permanent move to another country, make sure at a very early stage in your planning that your HIV status isn’t going to be a problem. A good place to start would be to contact an HIV service organisation in the country you want to move to. NAM's AIDS Organisations Worldwide and European AIDS Directory list major organisations that you might want to consider contacting.
For a comprehensive list of entry restrictions A-Z by country go to: http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1007944.asp
With thanks to NAM
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E.U. Members Express Concerns About U.S. Travel Regulations Related to Health, HIV/AIDS European Union member countries on Thursday expressed concerns about U.S. plans that could require visitors to provide personal health details, including information about their HIV/AIDS status, before they enter the country, the AP/International Herald Tribune reports.The U.S. last week announced plans to introduce a Web-based, pretravel authorization system for foreigners wanting to enter the country. U.S. officials said the program would apply to people coming from countries that are part of the U.S. visa-free travel program and would include questions concerning communicable diseases. Questions about communicable diseases already are asked on paper forms that travelers are required to complete and present to U.S. border agents when they enter the country. Online registration would be mandatory for all visa-free travel by Jan. 12, 2009, the AP/Herald Tribune reports. The new regulations are scheduled to take effect in August.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said some E.U. countries are questioning whether such health information is necessary, especially information about sexually transmitted infections. He added that whether an STI is "contagious in the stricter sense is a question that you could write a doctoral thesis about." Slovenia Interior Minister Dragutin Mate said that some E.U. countries have questions about the health-related information required. However, he added that E.U. countries "have to be aware ... we cannot change the law of another country." U.S. officials have said that the new system will not amount to a new visa but simply replace the current forms visitors are required to complete when they enter the country. E.U. ministers have provisionally supported plans to introduce a similar register in Europe for visitors from the U.S. and other countries entering E.U. nations that participate in the E.U.'s passport-free travel zone (AP/International Herald Tribune, 6/5).
With thanks to KAISER
