HIV in sports.
...of these is a Blood Rule. HIV is a blood-borne virus, which means that it has the potential to be spread whenever there is blood present. Other blood-borne viruses include hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Blood rules are processes implemented in sport to prevent the transfer of blood between players. They are utilised when a player has blood or an open wound on themselves, the player then must be sent off the field for treatment or treated immediately. In Australia, the national Aussie Rules football competition, the Australian Football League (A.F.L.) uses a blood rule where the player affected is asked to leave the field for medical treatment immediately, in this case play stops until the player has left the field. In the National Rugby League (NRL) if the umpire spots blood or an open wound on a player they will stop play and the player will be treated on field. Although many major sporting leagues such as the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) use the blood rule strategy to combat the risk of infection, the blood rule idea is not fool proof. In almost all circumstances when a player realises that they have a wound, they will attempt to hide it from the umpires in order to stay on the field. This can be viewed as players being negligent and inconsiderate. If the player successfully hides their wound and then infects another player, the primarily infected player would be mainly responsible for infecting the other player. This situation would only have to occur once for the blood rule idea to be seriously revised. State and Commonwealth anti-discrimination legislation declares that it is unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of their disability or impairment in many areas of public life, these areas include sport and club membership. As well as this, due to confidentiality laws an infected player is not committed to revealing that he or she is infected with HIV. Although there may be circumstances where a player would tell their coach about their condition, it is not required. Therefore people are legally entitled t...