Plans to prosecute AIDS carriers

Malawi's state-funded law commission said on Thursday said that it would revise the country's penal code to allow for the possible prosecution of AIDS carriers who recklessly spread the disease, news reports said. The Commission on Criminal Justice Systems spokeswoman, Rose Kanyuka, was quoted as saying that the Law Commission would to begin canvass opinion on the move. "We will hold a series of workshops starting this month to see how best the issue of criminalising the spread of AIDS can be tackled," she said. Law Commission reform officer, Matilda Katopola, stressed that the proposed changes would only target people deliberately spreading the AIDS virus and would seek to treat them as criminals. The initiative forms part of a wider review of Malawi's laws.