Search
  1. Home
  2. Southern Africa
  3. South Africa
  • News

Telkom urged AIDS action by businesses

    JOHANNESBURG

    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.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

    Share this article

    Our ability to deliver compelling, field-based reporting on humanitarian crises rests on a few key principles: deep expertise, an unwavering commitment to amplifying affected voices, and a belief in the power of independent journalism to drive real change.

    We need your help to sustain and expand our work. Your donation will support our unique approach to journalism, helping fund everything from field-based investigations to the innovative storytelling that ensures marginalised voices are heard.

    Please consider joining our membership programme. Together, we can continue to make a meaningful impact on how the world responds to crises.

    Become a member of The New Humanitarian

    Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

    Join