World Health Day, which falls on April 7 every year, is a chance to highlight the hurdles which stand between us and the goal of universal realization of “the highest attainable standard of health.”

There are nearly 5 million people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Asia, and great improvements have been made in providing support to them.  However, discrimination against these people exists at all levels of life: private, public, places of employment, and even places of medical treatment. Routinely across Asia, health care settings–which are supposed to be dependable life-lines for people living with HIV/AIDS–often end up preventing individuals from accessing life-saving treatment for their disease, for fear of public backlash.

In a six-country study in Asia, of 228 women surveyed, more than 70 percent said they had been asked or encouraged to have a sterilization procedure. This pattern of discrimination is especially prominent among marginalized populations, such as people who use drugs, sex workers, and transgender persons, who regularly identify lack of confidentiality, discrimination and negative attitudes from healthcare providers, and fears of being identified to the public as barriers to their healthcare.

Because of this well-documented discrimination, many people living with HIV/AIDS avoid clinics and hospitals, despite needing access to medical services.

For those who do try to seek treatment, people living with HIV/AIDS across Asia are regularly turned away by hospitals after seeking medical services. One reason for this is public ignorance. In many places, the general public will not return to a hospital if they believe it is an “AIDS hospital.” Medical discrimination not only endangers the lives of PLWHA, it also violates their right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health and increases the stigmatization towards HIV/AIDS. Shame and fear of discrimination from healthcare providers drives PLWHA far underground, to the point where even those who were once willing to receive treatment become unwilling to seek key HIV prevention, care, and treatment services.

This fuels the epidemic.

The underlying reasons for medical discrimination are varied. Many countries have laws and policies which are meant to protect PLWHA from discrimination. Yet these laws have serious gaps in implementation.

One factor that is often ignored is the lack of training on HIV/AIDS for health care professionals in Asia. It is widely assumed that healthcare providers have knowledge about HIV/AIDS, but statistics show that they often lack fundamental knowledge on the disease.

The occupational safety of health care providers should be of high concern here. For example, a survey conducted among 60 clinical staff in one Asian country found that most did not wear protective glasses. This was largely because they were not equipped with them. Making headway on this, in 2013 China added occupational exposure to HIV as an occupational injury disease. Other countries should follow suit and step up the pace of providing safe working environments for health care workers and enabling the treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Forging an inclusive healthcare system, where the most marginalized individuals receive treatment necessary to contain their disease and halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, is key to making progress in global health goals. The current situation is meandering slowly, bogged down by erroneous public perceptions. In the meanwhile, the repercussions of inaction are measured in lives lost to a disease that science can, all discrimination aside, treat.