Condoms - more precious than gold

Ghanain mining company Ashanti Goldfields on Thursday told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the number of HIV infections in its mines had fallen from 271 in 1998 to 62 in 2002 as a result of its worker condom scheme. The mine's human resources manager, Elaine Kwame, said both male and female staff are periodically given one condom in their pay packets. Kwame said it would be too expensive to hand out free condoms on demand to all 7,000 mine employees, despite some staff having asked for additional condoms. In South Africa, where prevalence rates are far higher than in Ghana, some mining companies have started supplying antiretroviral drugs to their HIV-positive employees.