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Eskom puts brakes on staff AIDS infection
Mariam Isa The Mercury Business Report, 10 June 2002 - republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd
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One of South Africa's biggest employers believes the rate of AIDS infection among staff is now on the decline because of a comprehensive programme which costs it about R180 million a year. Power utility company Eskom said the rate of infection in the company was currently estimated at 9 percent, down from 12 percent in 1995. Seven years ago it was predicting that a quarter of the workforce would be infected by 2003.
Charles Roos, Eskom's Chief Medical Officer, said the money the company was spending to educate and provide medical aid and life insurance, pensions, death benefits and AIDS-related counselling to its 35 000 staff had peaked at R188 million in 1999.
This was equivalent to between 8 percent and 10 percent of the company's payroll, compared with a forecase of 15 percent in 1995. "We think the costs (of the epidemic) and the infection rate have peaked. We are now on a downward trend - spending on AIDS-related programmes should level off at betwen R75 million and R80 million by 2009."
In the last 20 years the number of employee deaths a year had doubled to eight for every 1000 workers as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Roos said. About half the absenteeism at work was a result of AIDS-related illnesses.
International researchers say Eskom, Africa's biggest power utility, has one of the most generous AIDS prevention programmes and the most comprehensive research on the epidemic in South Africa. Eskom, a state-owned company earmarked for privatisation, began investigating the impact of HIV/AIDS in 1985. Roos said a move to cut the number of Eskom staff from about 67 000 in 1989 - reducing the amount of unskilled labour - was a factor in its lower infection rate. He said the performance bonuses of managers at Eskom were tied to AIDS-related training goals.
South Africa has the highest number of people living with the deadly HI Virus in the world, with one in nine of the country's 43 million people infected.
Report by Mariam Isa - published in The Mercury Business Report, 10 June 2002 |
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