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HIV/AIDS taking a massive toll on the mining industry
Jo-Anne Smetherham. 23 February 2004. Pretoria News. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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A survey of 26 South African mining and manufacturing companies has found just over 14 percent of the workforce to be infected with HIV.
The research, conducted in 44 companies in South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, is believed to be the biggest ever of the HIV prevalence among formally employed workers in southern Africa.
Most statistics about HIV/AIDS prevalence are extrapolated from antenatal surveys, which investigate only the infection rate among pregnant women attending the state service.
Altogether 28 509 workers were tested in South Africa, as were 6 240 in Botswana and 9 345 in Zambia, in the series of surveys by the consulting firm AIDS Management and Support in 2000 and 2001.
The survey results were published in the February 2004 edition of the South African Medical Journal. The companies requested the research. Workers' HIV status was kept confidential.
It was found that:
- 18 percent of the miners in South Africa had HIV, as had 17 percent of the metalworkers
- 16 percent of the South African male workers had HIV, as did 10 percent of the female workers. In 2001 the country's national antenatal survey found 24,8 percent of pregnant women to have HIV
- Contract (23 percent infected), unskilled (18 percent) and semi-skilled workers (18 percent) were much more likely to be infected than skilled workers (10 percent) and managers (4.5 percent).
- The average infection rate across countries and sectors was nearly 17 percent. In several of the companies more than one in four workers was HIV-positive.
"The costs of health care and employee death and disability benefits are skyrocketing," the authors wrote. "If firms are to weather the HIV/AIDS storm and provide appropriate prevention and care services to employees and their families, they must have accurate information on how many in their workforce are affected."
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