SWAZILAND: Private sector avoids cost of AIDS

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has not yet affected the profitability and productivity of Swazi businesses, as the burden has been passed onto households and the community, a new report found. A study commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the United Nations Country Team said the coping strategies adopted by the private sector had been effective in mitigating the impact of the epidemic on productivity and increase in costs of production. "However, this has been done at the expense of the public sector, households and the community," the study said. The private sector's response to the epidemic had concentrated on HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns and cost avoidance. While some businesses had drafted policies to guide their response, most had not yet adopted a "systematic approach", it noted. Companies had managed to avoid the costs associated with the epidemic by implementing targeted retrenchment of employees living with HIV/AIDS, and providing limited benefits. Households, however, were left to shoulder the burden, especially among subsistence farmers. "We found that during the later stages of the illness, family members had to take time away from working on the farms to look after the sick person," Moses Sithole, one of the study's researchers, told UN news agency PlusNews. "The burden on families, particularly in the subsistence sector, was more so than on the employer," he added. "There is need for further studies on business response to the epidemic, to identify strategies for cost avoidance that can be implemented by the private sector without transferring the burden of the disease to the households and individuals," the study concluded.