UNAIDS Report: A Part time eyewash??

[Guest guest]

Dear Dr. Andersen and officials of ministries and NACO,

I would urge you to also investigate the fact that many of the

returnees were allowed to pass immigration without being quarantined,

in spite of the fact that they did not have yellow fever vaccination.

The differentiated application of the 'Law of the land', is what

technically makes it discriminatory, at least that is what my limited

understanding of the law says so [The Honourable Supreme Court seems

to agree]. When you say that HIV status was not the criteria for

quarantine, then what was in selecting this group of six while letting

others off, even though these others did not have a Yellow Fever

vaccination certificate?? [Please refer to the letter posted on this

list by the Nepali Delegates to the conference, and also by one Mr.

Geoffrey Heavesides]

There is also the greater public health concern of mine that has not

been addressed in this neat document you all have developed, namely,

if the immigration authorities takes a bribe or otherwise lets people

off without a vaccination, then the whole logic of quarantine fails

for any of those let off could be spreading the Yellow Fever amongst

the general population here. Any scenario where the 'Law of the land'

is not uniformly and universally applied, flies on the face of common

sense and common science, and therefore what is the ministry

contemplating in relation to taking action against the immigration

authorities for this ARBITRARY application of the 'law of the land'.

In this context may I point out to all of you another piece of

the 'law of the land' that may be pertinent here. This is called

Section 269 of the Indian Penal Code. It is quoted hereunder:

" S 269: Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous

to life.- Whoever unlawfully or negligently does any act which is, and

which he knows or has reason to believe to be, likely to spread the

infection of any disease dangerous to life, shall be punished with

imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six

months, or with fine, or with both. "

In the above case, the immigration authorities by letting people go

without vaccination certificates [even while selectively choosing

six...for reasons still unexplained], were not only negligent in their

duties, but were also violating the 'Law of the land on quarantine',

and therefore acting patently unlawfully. Does the ministry in its

wisdom see the public health logic I plead here and is there any hope

of seeing the above piece of 'law of the land on spreading of likely

infections' finding appropriate application on the immigration

authorities.

Eagerly seeking answers!

Regards and best

Aditya Bondyopadhyay

Aditya " <adit@...>