PANOS London: November 30, 1997
Prangtip Daorueng

As the disease continues to spread among the general population, businesses are realising that it has serious implications for the workforce and productivity.

In Thailand, the private sector is seeing how people from 21 to 35 years of age are starting to die from AIDS and its complications. Many of them were infected with the HIV virus four or five years ago.

In the long run, experts say the disease may affect not just human health but the labour force, productivity and the economy in general.

Concern over the pandemic and knowledge that its effects will continue to be felt despite a tapering off in the number of new cases in some groups in Thailand are prompting private firms to look at how to cope with HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

The Thailand Business Coalition on AIDS (TBCA) is known for spearheading efforts to step up AIDS education among workers, and to counter discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS.

Similar involvement by business groups exists in other countries like India and the Philippines, but health campaigners say far more can be done.

In the Philippines, companies like Levi-Strauss, whose policies worldwide involve education about AIDS among its workers, are leading the way in running programmes about the pandemic.

In India, two major national federations of industries and business are starting initiatives to create AIDS awareness in industry. These projects range from distribution of AIDS information kits, posters and handouts to firms.

Likewise, the Indian Health Organisation offers programmes for business and industries, a good part of them in Mumbai. A few business houses, such as Johnson & Johnson, have AIDS education programmes in progress.

But "barring these, we hardly see any organised response to AIDS in business," observed Dr I S Gilada, honorary secretary general of the Indian Health Organisation in Mumbai.

In Thailand, where an anti-AIDS campaign has made headway in the last decade, efforts are also underway to drum up AIDS awareness and prevention in target groups like factory workers.

One project, funded by the European Union and run together with the Mahidol University, seeks to incorporate HIV/AIDS education in factories in Pathun Thani province, with the support of local government and factory officials.

Officials of the 'Friends of Workers' project say they hope some companies will choose to continue with the education programme even after the formal project. However, Thailand's economic woes do not augur well for extra investments by businesses in health programmes like AIDS.

Yet Thai experts say the need for information at the workers' level remains large, though they say the HIV/AIDS campaign has been underway in the country for more than a decade now.

"We still get the same questions from business people, such as how people get infected," said Nurudin Dahsarehamoh, a trainer with the Thailand Business Coalition on AIDS. "Or would it be risky if they went to the same barber shop or sipped water from the same glass as HIV-infected people."

"Although the public can have more information about AIDS now, so many well-educated people including business executives, still don't really understand it," he explained.

Likewise, businesses will soon be faced with the question of policies that are non-discriminatory to those with HIV and address their health needs.

It was this realisation that led to the creation of the TBCA in 1992, after two business executives from the Regent Hotel and Northwest Airlines in Bangkok talked to each other about problems in the future.

In the eyes of many business executives then, adopting policies toward HIV-infected people in the workplace was unavoidable since no cure has yet been found for it. But the problem is how companies can deal with it.

In 1993, 10 companies raised funds to create TBCA to gather information on AIDS from resource institutes and to help one another in drafting proper guidelines for company policies. Today, 118 firms and more than 20,000 workers are part of the coalition.

Nurudin says AIDS issues in the workplace range from health benefits to blood testing.

"One thing that executives such as personnel managers or those in higher positions always ask are questions concerning management policy. The issue of blood testing, whether it should be done or not, and how to deal with HIV-infected employees are often raised," he said.

Often, there is discrimination in the workplace and it mostly comes from lack of understanding among management people, he explains.

In the case of blood testing by companies to screen employees, he says no law in Thailand says it is illegal, so some firms still do it. Indeed, reports say employees have been fired after being found by company blood tests to be HIV-infected.

"When we were asked by company executives if it should be done, we didn't try to tell them if it is right or wrong," Nurudin said.

"Instead we gave them more information why it (testing) is not very practical. Employees can get infected any time after that although their blood proved negative in the first test," he explained.

The coalition trains not just high- and mid-level executives of member firms, but workers on counselling and other skills, so they can continue running AIDS programmes in the office. Nurudin says some participants have gone back to their offices with more understanding about people living with AIDS and HIV, but says it takes time for that knowledge to be put in action.

"Information is one thing but attitude is another. We may give people as much information as they want, but it takes time to have them change their attitude and behaviour," he added./IPS

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