The banning of an HIV-positive South African Aids activist, which might prevent him from making a life-saving mission to Canada, is expected to spark fierce international debate.
Shaun Mellors, a founding member of the National Association of People Living with Aids (Napwa) and the organisation's former global director, was about to take up a two-year contract with an international Aids service organisation in Toronto when he was barred from working in Canada because of his HIV status.
The ban, to be fought by lawyers representing large non-government organisations in Canada, could lead to international outcry, particularly as Canada is to host the sixteenth World Aids Conference in 2006.
Mellors was notified by Canadian officials in Pretoria that he would not be granted a two-year visa to continue his work as he could pose an "excessive demand" on the Canadian health care
system.
An official at the Canadian High Commission said that the "inadmissible" clause was in accordance with section 381c of a new act which applies to HIV-positive people wishing to be in the country for longer than six months.
"It's of huge concern that legalised Aids apartheid is emerging in many countries, not only Canada" said 36-year-old Mellors, who has lived with "manageable" HIV for the past 15 years. "We're seeing this same 'pariah' thinking in Australia and India - fortunately not in South Africa."
He was to have joined the International Council of Aids Service Organisations as their HIV/vaccine/microbicide policy co-ordinator after it was found that nobody in Canada was suited for the job. Now he has only has a two-month permit for Canada while lawyers appeal against his banning.
Mellors, who believes that "disclosure of HIV and ridding of stigma" are two key issues in the control and treatment of the disease said that he had no problem in declaring his status to the Canadian government before taking up his new job.
"But what happened afterwards was nothing short of a nightmare" he said. "I received forms from the Canadian High Commission in Pretoria informing me that tests for syphilis, HIV, chest and urine analysis had to be done first.
"As my CD4 count (the cells that control the immune system response) is an acceptable 540 and my viral load undetectable, I did not imagine for one moment that there would be any problems."
But he was wrong. The tests were sent to Africa's chief medical officer in Nairobi, Kenya, who then asked for another opinion on Shaun's HIV status.
After a second test the information was sent to government officials in Ottawa. Days later he was informed by the high commission in South Africa that permission for a two-year visa had been turned down for medical reasons.
"Not only are you being unfairly targeted, the confidentiality aspect is virtually non-existent," said Mellors before flying to Canada on his restrictive permit. "You are also penalised in other ways as a person living with HIV."
A ministerial permit does not come with any health insurance. As Canada's private health insurance schemes have an exclusion clause for HIV, it would be impossible for him to obtain the anti-retroviral therapy he needs to maintain his current health status.
Anti-retrovirals he needs for his current stay have had to be bought in South Africa.
Mellors made his HIV status known at the age of 21. Since then he has campaigned for non-discrimination against people living with Aids, an organisation he founded in South Africa in 1988. He also worked at the Aids consortium at Wits University with Judge Edwin Cameron and has been a delegate at several world conferences on Aids. - Independent News Network