Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - November 14, 2002
South Africa has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country in the world. But while antiretroviral drugs are freely available to those with private health insurance, the government refuses on cost and safety grounds to prescribe them.
AngloGold announced earlier this year that it would treat HIV-positive employees among its 40,000 strong workforce. The pandemic costs it around $4-$6 per ounce mined, but the cost of failing to manage it would be $9 an ounce, the company said.
Three AngloGold patients received their first prescriptions for anti-AIDS drugs on Wednesday. Over the next five months they and some 200 volunteers will be monitored, and treatment will be rolled out to all eligible patients who want it from April 2003.
"We have about 2,500 to 3,000 people who are HIV positive and eligible for antiretroviral therapy," said AngloGold's HIV/AIDS manager, Petra Kruger.
Although it believes between 25 to 30 percent of its workforce is HIV positive, the company says not all would need the drugs immediately and not all staff would want to be tested.
"For society's sake, we hope others follow us," AngloGold Chief Executive Officer Bobby Godsell said.
The company could not give a cost estimate for the programme, citing drug prices and uncertainty over whether employees would use the facility.
But drugs were becoming increasingly affordable, with a drug cocktail currently costing 840 rand ($87) per patient per month, down from 1,200 rand ($127) two months ago, it said.
The company says the drugs will help prolong employees' working lives and contain future AIDS-related expenses.
About 4.8 million people, or one in nine of South Africa's 42 million population, are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
AIDS activists used the courts earlier this year to force the government to begin using anti-retroviral therapy to help HIV-positive women prevent the infection of their babies during childbirth.
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