Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Saturday November 30, 2002
Andrew Quinn

As the countries around the world mark World AIDS Day Sunday, the calculus of Africa's AIDS disaster is increasingly spurring the continent's business leaders to take the lead in fighting and treating the disease.

With some 30 million Africans infected, millions expected to die in the coming years and billions of dollars being wiped off the economic ledger, they can hardly afford not to.

"Companies have become increasingly aware that offering prevention and health care costs them 10 times less than losing skilled employees to AIDS," said Mamoudou Diallo, UNAIDS country adviser for Ivory Coast.

U.N. officials say the spread of AIDS could derail the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the ambitious multi-billion dollar development drive which African leaders hope will finally cure the continent's economic malaise.

"What is happening is a direct challenge to NEPAD, and to everything that Africa wants to achieve," Stephen Lewis, the U.N. envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said. "Unless you deal with the disease, you will never get economic growth.

That's a lesson not lost on Africa's business community, which is rushing to put battle plans in place.

SOUTH AFRICA LEADS THE CHARGE

South Africa, which is both Africa's largest economy and worst-hit country in the world with some five million AIDS cases, is leading the charge.

The mining industry, the country's biggest private-sector employer with more than 400,000 staff, has been among the most active. Gold mining giant AngloGold ANGJ.J this month began distributing anti-AIDS drugs its HIV-positive staff, who make up about a quarter of 40,000 strong workforce.

Other mining companies have launched enhanced HIV/AIDS prevention programme that includes testing, counselling and treatment of opportunistic infections.

There are real economic considerations at work. UNAIDS estimated in 2000 that South Africa's economy would be 17 percent smaller in 2010 than it would have been without AIDS, costing the country about $22 billion.

Other estimates say close to a third of all semi-skilled and unskilled workers could be HIV-positive by 2005.

South African mining companies estimate AIDS could boost the costs of gold production by as much as $9 per troy ounce by 2010 in the form of medical costs and worker retraining unless steps are taken to control the spread of the disease.

Other large South African firms, from financial service companies to car producers and soft drink bottlers, have also promised to provide anti-AIDS drugs to their employees -- and a number of companies have attempted to spur AIDS awareness by having their own board members tested for the HIV virus.

But other companies have been more cautious with their promises, however, citing the difficulty in maintaining expensive drug and health programmes over many years.

Political analysts predict the move by South African companies into providing AIDS care will boost pressure on the government, which already faces calls for a more aggressive anti-AIDS drug policy from trade unions and AIDS activists.

"There are obvious economic factors here," said Carol O'Brien, who directs HIV/AIDS programmes at the South African Chamber of Business. "While the government was dilly-dallying, business was stepping into the breach."

HERE COMES MAMA CONDOM

Elsewhere in Africa, businesses are also waking up to the threat AIDS poses to the corporate bottom line.

In Kenya, where tea production employs close to two million people and contributes almost a third of the country's foreign exchange earnings, some tea companies are treating agricultural workers who fall sick with AIDS -- an expensive proposition.

"(If) somebody dies in the estate we have to transport the body, buy the coffin...it is quite serious for us," said Nigel Sandys-Lumsdaine, who manages several medium-scale tea estates in western Kenya for Williamson Tea GWKL.NR .

In an effort to cut down the treatment costs, tea companies are stepping up education of their workers -- including the introduction of a "Mama Condom", a colourfully dressed figure who walks through the tea fields handing out condoms joking "you might need this tonight!"

In the Ivory Coast, which has the highest AIDS infection rate in West Africa at between 10 and 12 percent, about a dozen companies are running AIDS prevention and medical programmes for their employees.

Power company CIE launched a pioneering scheme ten years ago, putting free condoms inside its workers' payslips.

Angelique Wilson, CIE's head of social affairs, said their programme had been initially driven by real concern about staff well-being, rather hard-nosed economic considerations.

"It's only when the anti-retrovirals came along that we realised there were also economic benefits (of treating infected staff). Someone who is treated with anti-retrovirals is not cured, but they can still work."

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