The business of AIDS

While the heat of public attention has been focused on government and its response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the business sector has been slow to come to terms with the potential impact of the disease on people and how to pre-empt it.

This is the view of two leading figures from the corporate sector, Clem Sunter of Anglo American and Metropolitan Life’s group chief executive Peter Doyle.

“We’ve all been in a state of denial — business, the churches, the government and others. We must move out of that denial into a much more aggressive attitude towards the epidemic,” said Sunter.

He added that business was just beginning to come to terms with HIV/AIDS and criticised those who believed that HIV/AIDS was not a concern for the white middle class.

“The virus is everywhere. It’s on the shop floor, in every layer of management, irrespective of race. It is a total myth to believe that HIV/AIDS is a poor, black disease,” Sunter said.  

Doyle, whose company was among the first to begin to grapple with the impact HIV/AIDS could have, said that the private sector had tended to blame government for not doing enough.

“But what has business done? It has direct access to its employees. It can do more than government. There is a role for government, but there’s a huge role for business,” Doyle said.

He emphasised that it was far more cost effective for a business to offer treatment and support for its workforce than to do nothing.  

“Businesses can make an impact, through voluntary counselling and testing, through offering treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Just those two interventions can have a massive impact. It’s within the resources of any business to adopt these kinds of programmes,” he said.

He said that the focus of public attention on the cost and availability of anti-retroviral drugs obscured the fact that there were many other interventions that could make a difference to the quality of life and productivity of people with HIV/AIDS.

Doyle said there was well-documented information that early intervention could make a significant difference.  

“A basic wellness approach is very cost effective,” he said. This included individual awareness of one’s HIV status, ensuring good nutrition, low stress levels and early treatment of other diseases.

“Sure, when someone is very sick as a result of AIDS, then anti-retrovirals play a role but before that there is much else that can be done,” said Doyle.

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