DaimlerChrysler's HIV / AIDS  workplace programme

In South Africa today, HIV/AIDS is the source of personal suffering on a scale that is unparalleled in our history. The disease affects every level and every sector of society, and in business it is the cause of substantial productivity problems. To try and lessen its impact on our workforce, DaimlerChrysler developed its HIV/AIDS workplace programme in 2001, through which employees are given ongoing education, medical treatment including anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and home-based care, if necessary.

Aids workshop is a success

There are times in life when you see something going on around you and you think 'this is just so right'.

I got that feeling while sitting in a small room on the 5th floor of the Carlton Centre in central Johannesburg recently. Also in the room were about 25 staff members - mostly drivers - of Drivers & More, one of the country's leading recruiters of driving and logistics personnel. And we were all listening to three people up front spelling out the facts, figures and other information on HIV/AIDS.

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Strategy in place to educate

FleetWatch, in partnership with Engen, has finalised a strategy to conduct monthly workshops for the trucking industry aimed mainly at educating management but also drivers on the issue of HIV/AIDS writes Patrick O'Leary

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FMCSA gives R390 000 to HIV/AIDS project

Business must get actively involved says MD

The Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality of Port Elizabeth, Department of Education and an intersectoral project team comprising of NGOs (Life Line, PPASA, Scripture Union) and the Health and Development Research Institute of the University of Port Elizabeth have combined forces in the fight against HIV/Aids.

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In acknowledging its responsibilities towards its employees, their families and society at large, Nissan South Africa has donated one of its vehicles to be used in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The Nissan-sponsored vehicle has been given to the independent consultants who are advising Nissan and other corporations based in Rosslyn on their approach to the disease, its employees who are affected, education and the development of a corporate aids policy.

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56% of drivers in KZN test HIV positive

For many years, FleetWatch has warned of the dire consequences of the spread of HIV/AIDS in the trucking industry. Our warnings have been heeded in some quarters and ignored in others. The bad news is that a recent study conducted by the HIV Prevention and Vaccine Research Unit of the Medical Research Council showed that out of 320 truck drivers surveyed in KwaZulu-Natal, 56% of them were infected with HIV. The study concluded that if urgent measures are not implemented, the spread of the HIV epidemic could have a seriously negative impact on the trucking industry of southern Africa. Although the finding have been reported in the general media, FleetWatch sourced more details from the MRC. Here they are.

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Local News

FMCSA honoured for HIV/AIDS leadership
FleetWatch lifts its hat, congratulates, applauds, pays tribute - you name it - to the Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa (FMCSA) for receiving an international award for the work it has done in the field of HIV/AIDS.

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Quote of the Month

"It all started as a rumour, then we realised we were dealing with a disease. Then we realised it was an epidemic;and now we have accepted it as a tragedy."

AET Doctor Uganda

Downloads

1. Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - New HIV estimates. Download the Powerpoint version (400 KB) or the HTML version (online).
   
   
2. Download a Red Ribbon from here.
   

HIV / Aids Links

• Joint United Nations Programme on HIV / Aids
• The Red Ribbon Organisation
• Business Responds to Aids & Labour Responds to Aids
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Aids Information
• The XIII International Aids Conference

HIV / Aids Epidemic Report

According to the AIDS Epidemic Report (December 1999) by UNAIDS:

• Sub-Saharan Africa continues to bear the brunt of HIV and AIDS, with close to 70% of the global total of HIV-positive people. Most will die in the next 10 years, joining the 13.7 million Africans already claimed by the epidemic and leaving behind shattered families and crippled prospects for development.
  
  
• Because of AIDS, companies doing business in Africa are hurting and are bracing themselves for far worse as their workers sicken and die. According to a survey of commercial farms in Kenya, illness and death have already replaced old-age retirement as the leading reason why employees leave service. Retirement accounted for just 2% of employee drop-out by 1997.
  
  
• Life expectancy at birth in southern Africa, which rose from 44 years in the early 1950s to 59 in the early 1990s, is set to drop to just 45 between 2005 and 2010 because of AIDS. In contrast, South Asians, who could barely reach their 40th birthday in 1950, can expect by 2005 to be living 22 years longer than their counterparts in AIDS-ravaged southern Africa.
  
  
• New information suggests that between 12 and 13 African women are currently infected for every 10 African men. There are a number of reasons why female prevalence is higher than male in this region, including the greater efficiency of male-to-female HIV transmission through sex and the younger age at initial infection for women.
  
  
• In 1999, an estimated 570 000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. Over 90% were babies born to HIV-positive women, who acquired the virus at birth or through their mother’s breastmilk. Of these, almost nine-tenths were in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa’s lead in mother-to-child transmission of HIV was firmer than ever despite new evidence that HIV ultimately impairs women’s fertility: once infected, a woman can be expected to bear 20% fewer children than she otherwise would.

In short, the huge gap in HIV infection rates and AIDS deaths between rich and poor countries, and more particularly between Africa and the rest of the world, is likely to grow even larger in the next century. Likely, but not certain. Massive national and international efforts may yet help to end the stifling silence that continues to surround HIV in many countries, to explode myths and misconceptions that translate into dangerous sexual practices, to expand prevention initiatives such as condom promotion that can reduce sexual transmission, to create conditions in which young children have the knowledge and the emotional and financial support to grow up free of HIV, and to devote real money to providing care for those infected with HIV and support to their families. A trail of successful responses has already been blazed by a small number of dedicated communities and governments. The challenge for the leaders of Africa and their partners in development is to adapt and massively expand successful approaches that make it harder for the virus to spread, and that make it easier for those affected to live full and rewarding lives.

Source: UNAIDS This is an extract from AIDS Epidemic Update: December 1999