risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV between workers

As part of favourable conditions of work, all employees have the right to safe and healthy working conditions. “In the vast majority of occupations and occupational settings, work does not involve a risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV between workers, from worker to client, or from client to worker.”58 However, where a possibility of transmission does exist in the workplace, such as in health-care settings, States should take measures to minimize the risk of transmission. In particular, workers in the health sector must be properly trained in universal precautions for the avoidance of transmission of infection and be supplied with the means to implement such procedures.The right to freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment can arise in a variety of ways in the context of HIV, for example in the treatment of prisoners.
Imprisonment is punishment by deprivation of liberty but should not result in the loss of human rights or dignity. In particular, the State, through prison authorities, owes a duty of care to prisoners, including the duty to protect the rights to life and to health of all persons in custody. Denial to prisoners of access to HIV-related information, education and means of prevention (bleach, condoms, clean injection equipment), voluntary testing and counselling, confidentiality and HIV-related health care and access to and voluntary participation in treatment trials, could constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The duty of care also comprises a duty to combat prison rape and other forms of sexual victimization that may result, inter alia, in HIV transmission.
Thus, all prisoners engaging in dangerous behaviour, including rape and sexual coercion, should be subject to discipline based on their behaviour, without reference to their HIV status. There is no public health or security justification for mandatory HIV testing of prisoners, nor for denying inmates living with HIV access to all activities available to the rest of the prison population. Furthermore, the only justification for segregation of people living with HIV from the prison population would be for the health of themselves. Prisoners with terminal diseases, including AIDS, should be considered for early release and given proper treatment outside prison.