Today is World AIDS Day. Internationally migrants are disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS, as agencies such as UNESCO and AVERT have recognised.

Migrants in all parts of the world are subject to marginalisation and discrimination, creating conditions of life that make them more vulnerable to HIV infection and less likely to receive medical treatment once infected.

As highlighted in a recent Refugee Council/Oxfam report, First do no harm, migrants living with HIV in the UK are amongst those denied access to health treatments by the Government's new rules requiring refused asylum seekers to pay for health care that they clearly can't afford. Meanwhile migrants with HIV may be deported to countries where treatments readily available in the UK are scarce or non-existent - in effect a death sentence.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200611130030

First do no harm: denying healthcare to people whose asylum seekers whose claims have failed (Oxfam and the Refugee Council, June 2006).

http://www.medact.org/content/refugees/Health%20access%20report.pdf