Concern over growing incidence of HIV/AIDS is rising among the world's business executives with 46 per cent believing that their operations would be adversely impacted over the next five years, a new survey has found.
The World Economic Forum, which released the survey, said the challenge now facing businesses throughout the world is to convert this concern into programmes that are strong enough to control the impact of the disease on their business.
"Business is becoming increasingly aware of the positive impact it can make on the disease, but the devil is in the detail," said Francesca Boldrini, director, Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum. "In order to successfully scale up efforts against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, firms need to develop increasingly robust HIV/AIDS workplace programmes."
The survey, 'Business and HIV/AIDS: A Healthier Partnership?' polled almost 11,000 business leaders in 117 countries. It found that very few firms have conducted a quantitative HIV/AIDS risk assessment (9 per cent) and the majority, where national HIV prevalence exceeds 1 in 5, have formal HIV/AIDS policies (58 per cent).
Where prevalence drops below 1 in 5, it says, very few firms have a policy (20 per cent) and these are likely to be informal.
Policies addressing the issues of discrimination in promotion, pay or benefits based on HIV status are rare only 18 per cent, the survey found.
The report highlights that the majority of policies need to be strengthened to cover the minimisation of stigma, the promotion of non-discrimination based on HIV-status, and support systems to assist employees in gaining access to antiretroviral treatments, rather than focussing solely on HIV prevention.
"HIV and AIDS is the defining moral issue of our time and businesses must play a critical role in the fight against the global spread of the epidemic. The business community is uniquely positioned to use our influence, resources and
leadership to challenge stigma, promote prevention and facilitate treatment," said William H Roedy, President of MTV Networks International and an UNAIDS Ambassador.
"There is no choice, no option, we must all be engaged and mobilised."
The report says that for more than a quarter of the US firms surveyed, HIV/AIDS policies cost them less than $500,000.
"In recent years we have seen business become more aware of the threat posed by AIDS leading them to take a bigger role in acting against the disease," said Ben Plumley, director, executive office, UNAIDS.
"The potential of the private sector's contribution is immense and there is so much more it can still do to help. The findings of this report will really help us understand how we can engage more businesses in addressing the growing threat of HIV."
