Call for Mandatory Premarital HIV Test

Infectious disease specialist, Zohreh Aminzadeh, says premarital HIV testing should be declared mandatory. “Currently, the only mandatory premarital testing is for diagnosing syphilis,” she said. According to the physician, a study in 2012 conducted on 2,000 Iranian couples  in 14 cities indicated that only 1,072 had voluntarily taken the test before marriage, ISNA reported. The latest estimates from UNAIDS say that 75,000 Iranians are infected with HIV, of whom 40,000-50,000 are not aware of their disease.