Goa likely to make HIV test ‘mandatory’ before marriage registration

To further a step in HIV prevention and transmission, Goa government will soon make HIV test mandatory for people before tying the knot. Recorded as the country with the third largest HIV epidemic in the world where around 2.1 million adults and children are reportedly living with HIV in the country, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Tuesday said that the coastal state's government was considering making HIV tests mandatory before the registration of marriages.

‘’We are considering making an HIV test compulsory for the prospective couples before registration of marriage in Goa. It is not mandatory right now," Rane told IANS.

Rane, who is also a Minister for Law, added that the proposal to make HIV testing compulsory before marriage was being vetted by the Law Department.

"If it is cleared by the Department soon, then we will table the law in the monsoon session of the state Legislative Assembly," Rane said.

In 2006, a similar health proposal for prevention of HIV transmission was vouched by then Health Minister Dayanand Narvekar, who was also of the opinion that thalassaemia should also be made mandatory before marriage.

“I am 100% in favour of making both tests mandatory before registering marriages’’ he had then said.