A gay Dutch man is the first HIV-positive person to be publicly known to have entered the United States since HIV travel restrictions were lifted by the Obama administration on 5 January.

Forty-five-year-old Clemens Ruland and his HIV-negative partner Hugo Bausch, 50, are set to arrive at JFK airport in New York at 4.20pm local time on Thursday for a week-long visit.

Over the last three years three HIV-positive people have been arrested on entering the US and sent back to the Netherlands.

The United States imposed the ban HIV-positive people entering the country during the Reagan administration. Twenty-two years later, the ban has been lifted following heavy campaigning from equal rights groups. 

Campaigners say a planned 2012 World AIDS Conference in the United States, which had been threatened by the restrictions, will now be able to host the people it is intended to benefit.

Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights programme at Human Rights Watch, will meet the couple at JFK airport. He told Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

“Lifting the ban is a victory for human rights. Human Rights Watch has campaigned over the years to lift the began because we thought it was a discriminatory measure and stigmatising for people living with HIV. It is also counterproductive in relation to public health.”

Listen to an interview with Boris Dittrich of Human Rights Watch on Newsline, RNW's news and current affairs programme