African businesses more concerned about HIV/AIDS threat

Sub-Saharan African business leaders are far more concerned about the threat of HIV/AIDS to their businesses than their counterparts in other parts of the world.

This is according to a survey report titled "Business & HIV/AIDS - A Healthier Partnership" released by the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. The views of 11 000 business leaders in 117 countries were used to compile the report of the survey, which was conducted between 2004 and last year.

While 41 pecent of business leaders in sub-Saharan Africa said they expected the pandemic to have a serious impact on their businesses within the next few years, only 1 percent in Western Europe shared their sentiments.

Only 6 percent of business leaders in East Asia, 5 percent in Latin and North America and 9 percent in South and South East Asia said they expected HIV/AIDS to have a serious impact on their businesses.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 15 percent of business leaders also had written HIV/AIDS policies in place compared to 2 percent in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The UNAIDS global HIV/AIDS update report released late last year said sub-Saharan Africa had just more than 10 percentof the world's population but was home to more than 25.8 million people living with HIV, of whom six million were in South Africa, where HIV/AIDS had already affected profits in key industries.

A study by the Bureau for Economic Research last year revealed the profit of about 55 percent of mines, 46 percent of transport firms and 38 percent of manufacturers had declined as a result of the pandemic.

The pandemic hit labour and capital intensive industries like mining and manufacturing companies hardest, said Brad Mears, chief executive officer of the South African Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS (SABCOHA).

"If your company is affected internally, it means sick leave, absenteeism and employee benefits are affecting you. If your company is affected by HIV/AIDS externally, it means it is affecting your trade," he said.

Mears said the first thing a company needed to do when implementing HIV/AIDS policies was conduct risk analysis to determine how HIV/AIDS would affect their employees.

Offering regular counselling and testing, running awareness campaigns to address the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS and to encourage behaviour changes among HIV-negative and HIV-positive staff were key elements in establishing good HIV/AIDS policy.

Nathan Geffen of the Treatment Action Campaign said: "I think the challenge now is for medium and small businesses to provide services like medical aid to their employees living with HIV/AIDS."