Businesses pledge to boost HIV/Aids programmes

Businesses have committed themselves to strengthening their HIV/Aids programmes. The committment was made at a workshop in Johannesburg on HIV/Aids in the workplace, hosted by the Global Business Coalition.

They say there is an urgent need for South Africa's private healthcare sector and private corporations to expand access to voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and treatment for people living with HIV.

Anglo American's Brian Brink says HIV/Aids is a crisis which deserves emergency response from the business sector. He says providing condoms in the company is not enough.

“We are trying to extend this beyond the employees to their partners also, spouses and dependants and that's quite hard to do because you've got to know who all these dependants are and you've got to make sure that they have access to the same kind of services that the employees have. It’s hard work and once we've got that going, we will look to extend it further, but that's going to take some time,” says Brink.

Businesses have cited stigma and discrimination as the main contributing factors for employees refusing to enroll for HIV treatment and care in the workplace. Big companies with HIV/Aids programmes say encouraging employees to be tested for HIV is not a problem, but the challenge is getting them enrolled for treatment, care and support.