Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - November 23, 2000
Jeremy Lovell, Cape Town
"By 2005 there will be six million people infected with HIV/Aids and there will be more than 1 600 deaths a day in South Africa," Wayne Myslik of Lifeworks told a seminar at which the industry's statistics were released.
"South Africa has the fastest growing epidemic of any country in the world. One in every five adults in this country is already infected and the infection rate is rising at 2 000 a day," he added.
Myslik said that although many individuals knew how serious the situation was, the country was hiding its head in the sand. Business must act promptly to tackle the pandemic or face collapse.
He said Lifeworks, founded by the insurance industry to investigate the Aids crisis, had designed a simple computer programme to show the corporate sector what it must do in terms of treating the disease and changing employees' lifestyle to prevent infection.
Myslik said some 40% of the payroll of companies in South Africa was spent on ill health and its after-effects. Lifeworks has calculated that absenteeism due to HIV/Aids costs firms 15% of their payroll a year, other illnesses 17.5% and disability 10%.
Companies are standing by, apparently helpless, and in some cases doctors are refusing to treat serious ailments such as tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases if a patient is HIV positive, he said.
Education in the workplace and the home about lifestyle and sexual behaviour is vital, as is removing the stigma attached to the disease so that it can be caught early and treated rather than left to fester undetected until too late.
"As the single most important strategic issue facing our economy, the fact that the relative effect of HIV/Aids is larger among the economically active than the total population means that HIV/Aids will affect every single medium and large business by 2020," Lifeworks said in a statement. - Reuters
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