AIDS spouses to have counseling

AIDS spouses to have counseling

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore is to make it mandatory for spouses of people with AIDS to undergo counseling, health minister Yeo Cheow Tong was reported on Friday as saying.

The move was aimed at overcoming the problem of people with AIDS not wanting their families to be informed of their condition.

Yeo said the Infectious Diseases Act would be changed this year to make the counseling of AIDS carriers and their families more effective, and give the health ministry "greater flexibility" over confidentiality.

By the end of September 1998, a total of 871 cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among Singaporeans had been reported. The first case was detected in 1985.