Prishtinë, May 15 – The Ombudsperson, pursuant to his constitutional and legal powers, delivered to responsible authorities as well as published Recommendation Report Ex. Officio No. 305/2019 regarding the rights of persons with HIV and AIDS in Kosovo, which assessed the effective realization of the rights of persons of this category, with regard to access to care and treatment, focusing particularly on discrimination, inequality, protection of privacy, failure to protect rights and pediatric treatment of children living with HIV.

This Report was initiated Ex-Officio by the Ombudsperson with the support of the Office of Community Development Fund (CDF) and based on discussions made in meetings of the Advocacy Group[1] of the HIV Prevention Program, consultative meeting with organizations working in this field in Kosovo, the Ombudsperson’s Report on Reproductive Health^[2], as well as findings from Ex Officio investigations conducted regarding this Report.

The foremost importance of this Report is to assess application of HIV testing and counselling standards at country level, more specifically, the assessment of the application of key principles, (giving consent, confidentiality, counselling, accuracy of test results and correlation to preventative, care and treatment services) during HIV testing, determined by World Health Organization.

The Report ascertained violations as per accomplishment of legal and constitutional rights towards persons infected with HIV and AIDS, specifically, as a consequence of the situation created by the malfunction of CD4 and Viral load measuring apparatus, reagent supplies and lack of ARV therapy for children, the obligation of patients to undergo mandatory HIV testing prior to surgical interventions in all Clinics in Kosovo etc.

Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms is essential and very important for an effective response to the prevention and treatment of HIV in Kosovo. Despite the fact that Kosovo has made a lot of progress on reacting to HIV and AIDS, there are still aspects that require attention of the responsible authorities regarding the rights of people affected by HIV and AIDS, so the Ombudsperson, based on the analysis and case investigation, has addressed Report with specific recommendations to responsible authorities, which aims to influence the improvement of the situation with regard to this issue.

The given Report has been disseminated to media and was published on OI official web page, at link