Reasons for forcing students to go for mandatory HIV screening

Reasons for forcing students to go for mandatory HIV screening

The Covenant University Vice Chancellor has stated some reasons for the mandatory HIV screening of graduation aspirants. According to Nigeria health watch (2007), Bishop Oyedepo describes the policy as an effort to “inculcate good morals, discipline and leadership qualities” (Nigeria Health watch, 2007) among the students wanting to become graduates. But anybody with a proper understanding of HIV infection and the consequences of mandatory screening for the presence of the virus would not agree with these objectives. Let us take the reasons stated by the Vice Chancellor into account one by one and analyze whether they are worth stating as reasons to impose such a law on the students.

1. Morality – HIV infection can indeed take place through unprotected sexual activities or shared needle uses. If restrain from such activities are taken as the parameters of good moral characters then it should be remembered that HIV can spread from blood transfusion also which is not supposed to be an immoral activity. And screening cannot detect the virus if tested within the window period. So the criterion of morality does not fit as a reason (Lamb, 2009).
2. Discipline – A disciplined life is a must for anybody. But testing positive for HIV is not a proof of an undisciplined life. And, on the opposite side a negative result of HIV screening can never prove that a person is a disciplined one. This criterion also is not feasible to impose a mandatory HIV screening on the students (Kaldor, 2007).
3. Leadership Qualities – Leadership qualities do not lie only on the negative test result of a mandatory HIV test of a student. On the contrary if a student shines in life despite being unfortunately being exposed to an infection HIV it would become an exceptional example for fellow students. There is very little relationship of HIV infection with leadership qualities.

It is now clear that no logic can prove the usefulness of a mandatory HIV screening for the students seeking graduation. Apart from that it will be logical to ask whether the University staffs and the Vice Chancellor himself would agree to prove that they have all those qualities they are looking for in the students. If these qualities are proved by mandatory HIV screening then the governing body itself should go for such a test every year along with the students to set up examples of morality, discipline and leadership qualities (Wools-Kaloustian, 2010).

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Other objections with the mandatory HIV screening

A compulsory HIV screening of students is a violation of human rights. Along with that it is ineffective due to certain reasons.

1. A compulsory HIV screening can create confusion about the status of HIV in the student by showing a false negative results if tested within the window period which is the time taken by the virus to manifest itself after the infection.
2. Mandatory HIV screening can create fear, sense of insecurity and confusion among the students. This is because of the conception that if they are tested positive then they would face severe stigma and discrimination. Students may stay away from graduating because of the fear of their HIV status getting public through a mandatory HIV testing.
3. Students testing positive in the test will go through a devastated mental state which might lead them to suicidal tendencies as a consequence. They would retract from the world and would resist taking any kind of medical assistance in any emergency also. Because the stigma of being HIV infected still haunts people, a student whose positive HIV status has by chance become known to somebody else will face social alienation and discrimination.
4. Though it is stated that the medical details would be dealt such that the privacy is not hampered the need of pre and post test counseling would always be a vital point. Any screening done without a proper counseling will always do harm rather than good (Lamb, 2009).
5. The result of a test might be false negative. But the student might be in the window period. The result would then tremendously misguide the student giving him an undue feeling of safety and he or she might continue the risky behaviors and might infect others as well.

The points are enough to prove that a mandatory HIV screening is not a proper weapon of stopping HIV from spreading. It would on the contrary cause potential harms to innocent students who will hesitate to try for being a graduate (Wools-Kaloustian, 2010).

Conclusion

According to the website www.unaids.org, the politic