HIV-positive children should be seized from parents who refuse to treat them on religious or ideological grounds, a Russian Health Ministry official told the state-run TASS news agency this week.
“When the child’s life is threatened, there must first be a warning, then the child should be removed from the family for treatment,” Yevgeny Voronin, a ministry expert, said Wednesday.
Voronin made the comments after a 10-year-old St. Petersburg girl died from AIDS last week.
The child’s parents reportedly refused doctors’ orders to undergo treatment despite a 2016 court ruling requiring them to hospitalize their daughter.
Her adoptive parents reportedly opposed traditional medicine and were convinced that AIDS is a hoax “invented by greedy drug makers,” the website of Russia’s children’s rights ombudsman, Anna Kuznetsova, said.