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2005-03-01 | All chapters

AIDS Alert - Private Business Must Help Prevent the Spread of AIDS in China
Gou Fu Mao, Metrozine, March 2005

HIV/AIDS has spread to all of China’s 31 provinces and municipalities according to UNAIDS, a United Nations body. While HIV spread a decade ago among farmers in Henan province who sold blood plasma to badly managed blood banks, more recently the virus has begun to appear among injecting drug users as well as sex workers and their clients.

Crucial to China’s fight against AIDS, private businesses appear to react to slowly to AIDS among staff – and are also too slow to realize the cost to their business. “Too few companies are responding to the social and business threat of HIV/AIDS,” said Dr Kate Taylor, Director of the World Economic Forum’s Global Health Initiative. “This is true of countries with very high, and with low but rising, levels of HIV. Given the potential benefits of putting programs in place to address the disease, this is a case of ‘too little, too late.’” Most firms don’t produce policies to tackle HIV/AIDS until a shocking 20 percent of the country’s population is infected, according to a global survey on the impact of AIDS on business. The Business and HIV/AIDS: Commitment and Action Report was jointly published by the World Economic Forum, Harvard University’s School of Public Health and UNAIDS, after a survey of almost 9,000 business executives in 104 countries, including China.

Around seven percent of companies in sub-Saharan Africa - the region worst affected by AIDS - have formal HIV/AIDS prevention policies in place. But business is even slower in China and Russia, countries predicted to experience the highest numbers of new HIV/AIDS cases worldwide by 2010. There is hope however in China, as the government steps up its efforts to control the disease. “We have seen an impressive turnaround in China over the past year,” says Dr Richard Feachem, the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. The Global Fund is a worldwide coalition of governments and business working to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. “China has realized that widespread epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS… pose a serious threat against economic development, poverty reduction and a stable society.” In China to discuss US$56 million worth of new Global Fund programs for the country, Dr Feachem said that China could avert a major AIDS epidemic by continuing to allocate more money to prevention programs and provincial care for victims.

The Chinese government seems to be listening: Beijing has over the past year nearly quadrupled its resources to fighting HIV/AIDS. Unlike many other countries, says Feachem, China has moved quickly to pass anti-discrimination laws, to build a treatment program for those already infected. The government has also begun to target prevention programs at injecting drug users and sex workers. “China recognizes that even low overall HIV infection rates pose a serious threat in the long run… We appreciate the considerable matching budget allocations from the Chinese government,” he said.

Investments from government - and business – must continue to grow however if the epidemic is to be contained, stresses Dr Feachem, pointing to a worrying study from Sichuan which sowed only around 40 percent of sex workers reported using condoms with all of their clients in the previous month. “Condom use is increasing but not enough. Already, the HIV infection rate among people being treated for sexually transmitted diseases is a grave cause for concern.” He also cites an urgent need to increase awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to reduce stigma through enforcing new anti-discrimination legislation and spread information about the epidemic. The government, says Feachem, also needs to ensure supplies of anti retroviral drugs, increase HIV testing, improve blood safety, and increase the monitoring of ongoing efforts.

While governments wake up to the urgency of the fight against AIDS, a trend of widespread corporate indifference to the impact of AIDS on businesses has been bucked in some large corporations. “Effective action on HIV/AIDS is synonymous with good business management and leads to more profitable and sustainable operations,” Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chief executive of Anglo American Corporation told a seminar on AIDS prevention practices hosted by the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing recently. “Companies should encourage all workers to know their HIV status, making it as routine as monitoring blood pressure or cholesterol. Providing access to treatment is a critical part of this,” said Mood Stuart, who leads the Global Business Coalition Against AIDS. International mining and natural resources company Anglo American estimates 24 percent of its 130,000-strong Southern African workforce are HIV positive. Over the last two years the company has implemented extensive voluntary counseling and testing for HIV infection, coupled with antiretroviral therapy. Over 90% of the 2,200 employees who have accessed and remained on treatment are well and have returned to normal work.

Despite the fact that 14,000 people contract HIV/AIDS every day worldwide, 71 percent of companies have no policies in place to address the disease, according to the Business and HIV/AIDS: Commitment and Action report. Over 65 percent of business leaders surveyed could not say or estimate the prevalence of HIV within their own workforce. “As a global community, every level of society needs to be mindful of what they can do to contribute to an effective response to HIV/AIDS,” said Kathleen Cravero, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS. “We hope more businesses will become proactively involved in issues such as AIDS. We know it is not just socially responsible; it is also a good investment.”

Apathy unfortunately isn’t confined to business executives. A Gallup International survey in January of more than 60,000 people worldwide shows that citizens want their leaders to focus on eliminating extreme poverty and hunger as the most important global priority for 2005. The same number of people feel beating terrorism is the global priority. Overcoming AIDS however was deemed to be far less important and was mentioned by fewer than five percent of respondents.

Business and HIV/AIDS: Commitment and Action concludes with recommendations that businesses need to better understand their risk exposure and learn to manage them from local good practices. “Non-discrimination and confidentiality are essential to encouraging employees to take AIDS test and seek help,” says Mark Moody-Stuart, urging Chinese business people in China to take the lead in the fight against AIDS. “It would be fantastic if China could show the world how to contain the epidemic,” says Dr Richard Feachem. “However, should we fail, the consequences would not only be catastrophic for China -- they would be felt all over the world.”