Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - December 1, 2006
In a report published on World AIDS Day, the United Nations agency said that more than 24 million people in the global workforce in 2005 suffered from HIV or the disease it causes, AIDS. Nearly 67 percent of these lived in Africa.
Giving these workers access to anti-retroviral drug therapy, or ARVs, could have lengthened their working lives by more than two years, and considerably increased per capita incomes in places like sub-Saharan Africa, the report found.
"Access to ARVs in the workplace must rise substantially," it said, estimating that 1.8 million more African workers would be alive in 2010 if 80 percent of the workforce were to start and stay on ARV therapy from this year.
Public health experts say that the life-extending drugs have transformed the once-deadly HIV and AIDS into chronic conditions. But they need to be taken at regular intervals to be effective, and can cause drug resistance when taken improperly.
The ILO estimated that the HIV epidemic stripped an average of 0.5 percentage points off the economic growth of 43 affected countries every year between 1992 and 2004.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 31 countries lost 0.7 percentage points of economic growth per year during the period.
Employment growth also suffered markedly. The ILO said HIV and AIDS caused a 0.5 percent yearly decline in sub-Saharan Africa's annual employment growth rate, "equivalent to an employment loss of 1.1 million (jobs) per year for Africa."
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