UK threatens detainees' lives by withholding HIV medication

Most HIV+ immigration detainees helped by Medical Justice have been denied life-saving medication in detention according to our new research.

"Detained & Denied", based on the first ever comprehensive analysis of treatment of HIV+ immigration detainees in the UK draws on medical evidence from 8 independent clinicians who assessed the detainees. Many of the 35 men, women and children studied are torture survivors from countries where rape is used as a weapon of war.

As a result of denial of medication some detainees have developed drug resistance, necessitating more complex drug combinations which are inaccessible to many in the country they are being deported to. Without these drugs they may die within a few years, leaving their children orphans in a country some of them have never been to before. More than three-quarters of the people in our study who were deported, had little or no medication. The UK Border Agency (UKBA) tried to deport an HIV+ pregnant mother who had been given less than a month's medication even though it is critical that treatment is not interrupted during pregnancy, to avoid a newborn child becoming infected.