JOHANNESBURG, Dec 14 (AFP) - South Africa's second biggest gold producer, Goldfields, has this week sealed an agreement with mining unions to test and treat workers for the AIDS-causing HIV virus, a spokesman said.
The agreement has been approved by the influential National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and is the first such accord between trade unionists and employers in South Africa.
Willie Jacobsz told AFP that Goldfields believed some 25 to 26 percent of its 50,000 workers carried the virus and the programme will enable it to manage the pandemic and keep afflicted miners productive longer.
"We will counsel our employees to volunteer for HIV testing, should they be negative, they can go back into the prevention programme. If they are positive, they can go into the wellness programme."
The latter, Jacobsz said, will include immune boosters, nutritional supplements, management of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and treatment of HIV-related illnesses.
The programme has been piloted at Goldfield's Driefontein mines west of Johannesburg and will be launched at all its mines early next year.
NUM Secretary General Gwede Mantashe was Wednesday quoted in the press as saying labour welcomed the deal because it believed it must fight AIDS in the same way it helped to bring down apartheid.
"Activism is what kept us going during the brutal days of apartheid and it is the only thing that will help us overcome this scourge," he said.
The programme does not provide for anti-retroviral drugs for HIV carriers, Jacobsz said, except for rape victims and pregnant, HIV-positive employees to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
The South African government has been refused to make anti-retrovirals available on public health to the estimated one in nine, or 4.7 million South Africans with HIV, arguing that it lacks the resources, but the Pretoria High Court on Friday ordered it do so in a landmark ruling.
Anglo Gold -- the world's biggest gold producer -- is conducting a feasability study to see whether it can give the drugs to the estimated 20 percent of its 160,000 employees with HIV.
Jacobsz said Goldfields "would keep an open mind" but believed "anti-retrovirals are not the panacea that they are made out to be and can be very dangerous."
He said Goldfields has calculated that AIDS and the management of the disease costs the company about "four to five dollars for every ounce of gold we produce."
The prevention programme, in place since the early 1990s, includes managing STD's among workers and distributing condoms in miners' change rooms, their living compounds and nearby communities.
"We distribute between 150,000 and 200,000 condoms every month. They disappear and we think people use them," Jacobsz said.
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