HIV-positive Ugandan Woman Loses Case for Asylum in European Court

European Court of Human Rights has rejected an HIV positive Ugandan woman’s claim for asylum in the UK for health reasons. She had said she would not get necessary treatment.

Her lawyers claimed that lack of medical care in Uganda would lead to her early death, and that would amount to cruel and degrading treatment.

But the British government denied this, saying all NHS HIV drugs were available in Uganda too.

The court agreed that there would be no violation of the bar on inhuman or degrading treatment if the unnamed woman were sent back to Uganda,

When the woman entered the UK in March 1998 under an assumed name, she was seriously ill and was admitted to hospital.

Soon afterwards, solicitors lodged an asylum application on her behalf, claiming she had been raped by government soldiers in Uganda because of her association with the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group in the north of the country.

The lawyers argued that her life would be in danger if she were returned to Uganda.

By November 1998, she was diagnosed with two illnesses which are known to be indicators of having AIDS, and as being in an extremely advanced state of HIV infection, BBC reports.

Her asylum claim was rejected in March 2001, a decision she appealed against.

In rejecting her claim, the Secretary of State found no evidence that Ugandan authorities were interested in her and that treatment of AIDS in Uganda was comparable to any other African country.

The government also said that all the major anti-viral drugs were available in Uganda at highly subsidised prices.

In January the government sent a terminally ill Ghanaian woman who had been receiving treatment in the UK back to her country because her visa had expired.

Source-Medindia
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