Kuala Lumpur - Couples in Malaysia will be required to undergo mandatory screening for HIV infection before they can get married, a news report said Thursday. "Next year, we will make it mandatory for all states to impose the HIV screening as part of the pre-marital course," Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak told a press conference after chairing a meeting of the cabinet's AIDS committee on Thursday.
Najib said the measure was in line with the government's objective to reduce HIV infections among women, the official Bernama news agency reported.
Currently only the states of Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah, Sarawak and Selangor have made it compulsory for couples to undergo a HIV screening prior to getting married.
According to recently released Health Ministry statistics, the number of women contracting HIV or diagnosed with AIDS is on the rise, as many are believed to have been unknowingly infected by their husbands who may have been drug users.
Studies have revealed that in the year 2007, three people died of AIDS every day in Malaysia.
Official statistics have also shown that ethnic Malays, with 58,267 infected, were the largest group among HIV victims, followed by ethnic Chinese with 11,886 infected, Indians at 6,532 and foreigners at 2,722.
