Telkom urged AIDS action by businesses

The South African parastatal telecommunications company, Telkom, says an estimated 11.4 percent of its 32,000 workers could be HIV-positive by 2006. According to Telkom human resources executive Oupa Magashula, the company's HIV prevalence rate currently stood at 9.6 percent, and failure to manage this could have adverse effects on the company's operations. A local newspaper, Business Day, quoted Magashula as saying: "The threat of HIV/AIDS to business, due to absenteeism, is immediate and real. The business community needs to respond decisively to the pandemic." In a bid to manage the impact of the disease, Telkom has allocated close to US $1.4 million for the provision of anti-AIDS treatment to infected employees.