UNAIDS Director Calls Upon Business Leaders to Initiate Aggressive Efforts against AIDS

03/02 97 MON 17:24 FAX [phone]

UNAIDS/External Relation

9006

In most of the world, HIV is spread by heterosexual sex. HIV also affects all social
classes and income groups, and no one will convince me that only poor customers
and unskilled workers have sex.
Take Zambia. Barclays Bank of Zambia has lost most of its senior managers to
AIDS. In countries such as Uganda, 40% or more of the military are infected with
HIV. And Malawi. Up to 30% of all schoolteachers in Malawi are infected with HIV.
These are people who cannot be replaced quickly or easily. When they die, who will
teach these children?
As the growth of Western economies is slowing down, businesses are looking to
Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe and South Africa as prospects for market
growth. As you know, investing in emerging markets means betting on the chance
that they will continue to grow, to make progress.
But consider this: a Kenyan business survey found that HIV/AIDS costs companies
nearly 4 percent of annual profits, and that because of AIDS, Kenya's GDP will be
15 percent less than it would otherwise have been by the year 2005.
At this point, the epidemic in Kenya and the rest of Africa is much more entrenched
than the epidemic in countries of South-east Asia. But remember that HIV in subSaharan Africa had a ten-year headstart. We have every reason to assume that the
epidemic in South-east Asia will soon be just as widespread as it is in Africa. And
that East Africa's experience -- a slow-down of its economy -- will be replicated in
Eastern Europe and the developing countries of Asia and Latin America.
In fact, economists at McGraw-Hill have predicted that by the year 2000, the world
economic impact of AIDS could be as high as equivalent to 4 percent of the GDP of
the United States or the entire economy of India.
When the breadwinner in a family dies, the household suffers. Consumption
decreases as dwindling resources are rationed to provide for the necessities.
Believe me, if infections continue at their current rate, a huge proportion of young
adults in Eastern Europe, India, South-east Asia and Latin America will never get the
chance to buy a refrigerator. A phone. A car.
So what can the private sector do? While many companies have made important
efforts to protect and educate their workforces, we ask that companies go beyond
the workforce into the communities in which they are active; lobby public health
officials; start their own programmes.