The Ministry of Labor will include in labor safety programs the inadmissibility of discrimination against people with HIV

Issues of HIV prevention will be included in the new procedure for training in occupational safety, which is being developed by the Ministry of Labor, reports TASS .

Currently in Russia there is a “Procedure for training in labor protection and testing knowledge of labor protection requirements for employees of organizations,” approved in 2003. The Ministry of Labor explained that they are developing a new document, which plans to include issues related to HIV.

Occupational safety and health training programs should include “basic information about HIV prevention and avoiding stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV.” Also, the new procedure for employee training will include the prevention of socially significant diseases. The Ministry of Labor will present the documents to the Russian Tripartite Commission, which includes trade unions and employers.

As Izvestia reports , the Labor Code stipulates that employees of organizations must undergo training in labor safety - on safe methods of performing work and providing first aid to victims. However, in practice, most employers do not provide instructions and ask employees to sign in journals “for show.” According to Ekaterina Zingerd, a representative of the Humanitarian Action Foundation, in such cases, the most effective preventive work is that which includes rapid testing for HIV.

According to the latest WHO data, Russia is the leader in Europe in the number of new cases of HIV infection - 71.1 cases per 100 thousand population. The virus was mainly transmitted through heterosexual sexual contact (59%) and injection drug use (30%). According to the Rospotrebnadzor AIDS Center, at the end of October 2018, the total number of registered cases of HIV infection among citizens of the Russian Federation was 1,306,109 people.

In Russia, for the first time in several years, the incidence of HIV infection has decreased - in 2016-2017 the increase was about 1%, while in 2013-2015 the number of HIV cases in Russia increased every year by more than 10%. However, overall over six years the increase in the number of new cases of HIV infection was 25%.