JOHANNESBURG, Dec 10 (AFP) - South Africa's rocketing AIDS rates have slashed profits in at least a third of companies surveyed in the largest such domestic study, published on Wednesday.
"HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly a bottom-line issue for business, as it impacts on production costs and consumer markets," Leighton McDonald, spokesman for the South African Business Coalition on HIV and AIDS (SABCOHA), told reporters here.
"Approximately a third of the companies surveyed reported that HIV/AIDS has already had an negative impact on profits, while more than half expect an adverse impact on profitability in five years' time," he said.
SABCOHA announced the results of a survey examining the impact of AIDS on 1,006 companies in South Africa.
The UN agency UNAIDS has estimated that South Africa had 5.3 million infected adults at the end of 2002 -- the highest number of any country in the world.
The Johannesburg-based Bureau for Economic Research interviewed business leaders in October and November this year, with about a third reporting reduced labour productivity or increased absenteeism as a result of AIDS.
Taking all factors into consideration, nine percent of the companies said HIV/AIDS had already had a significant adverse impact on the business overall, while 43 percent envisaged a significant negative impact within five years' time.
About 30 percent of businesses reported higher labour turnover, while a similar amount complained they had lost experience and skills. Just over 20 percent had incurred recruitment and training costs due to the AIDS epidemic.
"Given that only eight percent of all the companies surveyed expect to be able to pass some of these HIV/AIDS related costs on to customers by increasing their selling prices, it is not surprising that so many reported that HIV/AIDS is having an adverse impact on profits," McDonald said.
However, it seemed that the disease had a smaller impact on the demand side than the production side, with less than 10 percent noting a negative impact on their sales.
McDonald said a matter of concern was the low level of response to the endemic, especially in companies with fewer than 100 employees.
"Only a quarter of all the firms surveyed have implemented a formal HIV/AIDS policy, while less than a fifth have a voluntary counselling and testing programme, or provide care, treatment and support to infected workers."
Some of South Africa's largest companies, including mining giants Anglo American and Goldfields, as well as South African Breweries, have launched AIDS programmes to provide drugs for infected employees, pre-empting an expected surge in deaths.
The United Nations warned in November that South Africa -- where almost 1,000 citizens die of AIDS every day -- would soon enter a "death phase" where many HIV-positive people would contract full-blown AIDS.
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