SINGAPORE, Sept 7 — For more than five years, the authorities urged a man to get tested for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after learning he had sex with an HIV-positive man.

However, the Malaysian national decided not to go for tests as he feared losing his Singapore permanent residency status if he was HIV-positive.

The man also lied to the National Public Health Unit (NPHU) from the Ministry of Health (MOH) by claiming that he had tested negative, before ignoring their calls altogether.

It turned out that he was HIV-positive and up to six of his male sexual partners could have contracted HIV after sleeping with him.

On Thursday, the 35-year-old was sentenced to three-and-a-half years’ jail in the State Courts. He cannot be named due to a court gag order.

The freelance hairdresser and fashion designer pleaded guilty to two counts of engaging in sexual activity while suspecting he had HIV or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (Aids), and another three drug-related charges.

Four other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

There is no cure for HIV. Without treatment it can evolve into Aids, which is potentially fatal.

A person can contract HIV through unprotected sex, sharing injection equipment, contaminated blood transfusions and organ or tissue transplants, or it can be passed from mother to baby.

He said he was busy with work

The court heard that the man began having casual unprotected and protected sex with men about once a week from 2003.

As a result, he suspected that he could have been exposed to or infected with HIV, but decided not to get tested after 2008.

In 2010, one of his sexual partners tested positive after having sex with him and told him about it. It was not stated if the other man got HIV from him.

The NPHU also advised the man to get tested after it became aware of sexual contact between the two men. However, he lied that he went for regular testing and had tested negative two months earlier.

In 2014, another of the man’s sexual partners was also diagnosed with HIV after having sex with him. The partner tested clean two months before, and the man was the last person he had sex with before testing positive.

The other man had also asked the man if he was HIV-positive, but he merely replied that he would get tested.

Between 2010 and 2015, the NPHU contacted the man at least three times to tell him he had been named as a former sexual partner of someone who had tested positive for HIV.

In January 2015, he told the NPHU that he was busy with his work. The authorities called him about five times, but he refused to answer.

In March 2016, a public health officer told the MOH that he had slept with up to six partners who tested positive for HIV afterwards.

He was eventually diagnosed with HIV in February 2017, after the MOH ordered him to take a test.

Re-offended while out on bail

A year later, narcotics officers arrested the man and took him to his rented apartment at Claymore Hill in Orchard.

Drugs apparatus, including glass pipes and packets of methamphetamine, were seized there. He admitted to using the drug to stay awake longer, and had been getting his supply from a dealer for more than a year.

He was charged in court on March 21, 2018 and released on bail.

However, about a year later, narcotics officers once again arrested him in his Jurong West home and discovered smoking apparatus there.

He admitted to taking meth about five times in March 2019, in the home of a friend he knew through the gay dating app Grindr. He did it to relax and treated meth like how others smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, the court also heard.

In mitigation, his lawyer James Ow Yong told the court that he comes from a supportive family and community, reducing his risk of further offences.

"The accused is bearing the brunt of his choices. HIV is an incurable disease. He has to live with the impact and effect of this disease on his life. There is already a great deterrent effect,” the lawyer added. — TODAY