HIV testing and the Employment Equity Act--putting an end to the confusion
London, L.; Benjamin, P.; Bass, D.H.
South African Medical Journal 92(3): 199-201
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 0256-9574 PMID: 12040939 Document Number: 542195
This paper comments on a previous article highlighting the issue of HIV testing (La Grange, MAC, South African Medical Journal, (2000), 90:773-775), specifically in the context of the prohibition by South Africa's Employment Equity Act (EEA) (Act 54 of 1998). It stresses that viewing of the EEA as 'another HIV calamity' is both mistaken and ill-advised as a public health response, and argues that public health practitioners in South Africa should rather welcome the EEA as a positive advance in the toolkit of strategies needed to control HIV in South Africa at present. The negative impacts of the discrimination against HIV-infected people in the workplace are discussed and the EEA is interpreted. The 3 reasons for accepting that the provisions of the EEA do not apply outside of the workplace context are stated.