HIV carriers' right to privacy cannot be a risk to others

IN A RECENT DISCUSSION on preventing epidemics, several members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature, advised revising the law to require HIV carriers and patients to inform others of their condition in certain circumstances. Beijing News comments:

Every citizen has the right to privacy, and those with HIV are no exception. Especially, as certain people discriminate against HIV carriers, the law must protect their privacy and forbid any individual or organization from releasing the information without their consent.

However, problems emerge when not revealing a person has HIV might pose a risk to other people's health. For example, last year a couple married in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, but the husband later found the wife had long known she carried HIV without telling him.