Justice Verma emphasized that the priority of all concerned should be the survival of the affected persons in a manner that respected their dignity and human rights. Speaking of the infected person's right to marry, the Chairperson said that though the individual's rights were sacrosanct, but in a society these rights had to be harmonized with the larger rights of society. The right to marry should be exercised without violating somebody else's right and that too only with informed consent. He added that merely denying the right to marry would not necessarily ensure that a person would not spread the disease. The Chairperson said that during the Millennium Summit held recently at UN Headquarters, world leaders had resolved to reverse the spread of the disease and had called upon pharmaceutical companies all over the world to make drugs affordable and widely available, especially in the developing countries which have almost 90 per cent of the total number of affected persons in the world.
Health is a significant human rights issue.
Only co-operative effort will be able to make a difference. The disease had to be arrested at whatever stage it had reached, and the affected had to be treated with dignity. He was of the opinion that when faced with a resource crunch, it was essential to get priorities right. Protecting the right to life and providing means for self-preservation, he observed, was an essential obligation of the State, which must provide proper medicare and ensure that it is available to all. Addressing the gathering, Shri Arun Jaitely, Minister for Law, Justice and Company Affairs said that though health care was a responsibility of the State, the standard of health care in the country left much to be desired.