Human rights activists have called for a second look at the national policy on Sexually Transmitted Infections that bars medical practitioners from disclosing the HIV/AIDS status of infected persons. The rights’ activists said the policy should be revised for the spouses of infected persons to have access to such information as their lives were endangered by the non-disclosure policy. Under the Patients’ Charter, medical practitioners and professionals privy to information about the status of HIV infected persons cannot disclose such information to anyone else apart from the patient. Proponents of the policy say this was necessary to avoid stigmatization of persons living with HIV, which panelists on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show programme on Monday agreed was widespread. Dr. Edmund Delle, President of the Africa Health and Human Rights Promoters Association said in some cases files of HIV/AIDS patients are flagged to warn others from touching them. He said investigations his association conducted as far back as six years ago revealed that patients were in some cases locked up and denied food so they would die. He therefore advocated lifestyles that would encourage patients to freely discuss their status with their partners, saying that some patients had been irresponsible and untrustworthy by keeping their positive status from their spouses or sexual partners. The activists cite the case of a woman who contracted the disease from the husband who was alleged to have knowingly infected her. The non-disclosure policy contains certain clauses that allow for disclosures in some exceptional instances. Nana Oye Lithur of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said that window of opportunity ought to be exploited to save the lives of innocent people. “We are protecting the right to confidentiality, the right to privacy of the person who is positive, but what about the right of the other partner? And it has a gender dimension where for every three persons living with AIDS you have two of them who are women. “We know that partners are not disclosing their HIV status. They go and test, they are positive, they come back home, have sex and they are not telling their partners. But there are exceptions stipulated in the policy in cases where in the considered opinion of the professional such disclosure is permitted by law or in the interest of the client himself or his spouse. “I would want the medical profession, healthcare providers in Ghana to critically discuss this about disclosure because we are getting persons living with AIDS getting the virus, just because their partners have not disclosed their status. You cannot protect one Ghanaian’s right and violate the other Ghanaian’s right.” The Ghana Aids Commission agreed with the rights activists on the review of the policy. A member of the Commission, Mr. Sam Anyimadu Asomaning, said the Commission had actually initiated moves to get the Ghana Medical Association to once again look at the policy. He however said ideally, the attitudes of all persons including those living with HIV should change while the society must endeavour to acquire more knowledge about the disease so that misinformation which compounded the problem of stigmatization, would be minimized if not eliminated