Article
Health disability: Corporate world counts the cost of Aids
Even after years of education campaigns, irrational fears [about HIV/AIDS] and workplace discrimination persist...as the economic impact of the disease becomes clearer, some bigger multinationals, at least, realise they have to act... "HIV/Aids is not just a human crisis; it's a corporate crisis. "It affects not just workforces but companies that have supply chains in that country…" says [Trevor] Neilson [of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS]...Coca-Cola is one company that has confronted the problem head-on. In 2001 it started work with bottling partners in Africa, providing Aids treatment and prevention programmes for employees...Anglo American, IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, BP and ChevronTexaco [now Chevron] are other companies that have begun to expand their HIV/Aids programmes...Still, despite such examples of corporate responsibility, there are more companies in the third world doing little.