EU welcomes end to US travel ban on HIV passengers

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission on Tuesday welcomed the decision by US President Barack Obama to lift a "discriminatory" travel ban on foreign visitors with the HIV virus.

"This decision by President Obama... is the culmination of a long campaign led by the European Commission and Parliament for the elimination of visa waiver travel restrictions tied to a person's HIV status," European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said.

He described the US travel ban, set to end early next year, as "discriminatory treatment."

Obama announced on Friday that the United States is poised to lift its decades-old ban on HIV-positive visitors from abroad, saying it had been introduced 22 years ago based on "fear rather than fact".

"Following the removal of HIV references from the list of communicable diseases which made persons affected by these diseases inadmissible to the US, HIV positive-people will, from January 2010 onwards, be able to travel under the visa waiver programme, which covers most, but not yet all, EU countries," the European Commission said in a statement.

There are still ten nations which ban HIV-positive and AIDS sufferers from abroad.