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We can't succeed alone in AIDS fight - Anglo
John Battersby, The Sunday Independent, August 10 2002. Reprinted courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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The Anglo American Corporation, which this week announced a bold plan to provide anti-retrovirals to HIV-positive employees, has appealed to the government to roll out its own programme of treatment to help the plan succeed.
"We need the government to roll it out," said Michael Spicer, an Anglo American director. "We can't succeed on our own."
Spicer said the corporation had always held that a successful strategy to fight the pandemic depended on input and co-operation from all sectors.
Anglo American has urged other mining companies to take up the scheme.
"We would be happy to share our expertise with them," Spicer said.
He said the take-up rate of a similar offer in Botswana, offered through the Anglo American subsidiary, Debswana, was 13 percent of HIV-positive employees.
"But this is a nation which is totally geared to treating the disease and the government is totally focused," Spicer said.
Spicer would not be drawn on the anticipated take-up rate in South Africa, where there is less state infrastructure for administering the drugs. But industry analysts have estimated around 10 percent in the first year, which would cost the company around R1,3 million a month.
Spicer would not comment on whether Anglo would help fund the provision of free anti-retrovirals at test sites for those HIV-positive South Africans who wanted the drugs but could not afford them.
But it is understood the mining giant is discussing a plan to make up the shortfall if pharmaceutical companies provided the drugs at drastically reduced prices. |
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