HIV/Aids

The HIV/AIDS programme is based on three pillars which include:

Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT)

The VCT programme this past year has been successful and the number of employees who have come forward to be tested has increased sixfold. This positive turnaround needs to be built on in the future. The theme that has been used is that of “Know your status”. The more employees who are tested, the more accurate the prevalence figures become, resulting in the company being in a better position to plan ahead to manage the epidemic and to provide employees with anti-retroviral therapy at the appropriate time.

Employee Wellness Programme

Once an employee has been diagnosed as being HIV positive, he or she is automatically placed onto the wellness programme. Following the finger prick test (Rapid test), a blood sample is taken from the employee and sent to an external laboratory for confirmation of the HIV status. At the same time the blood is sent for a CD4 count so that an immediate assessment can be made of the stage of disease development. Thereafter, the employee is scheduled to be seen at specific intervals. At each of these scheduled contact sessions, the employee is counselled, weighed and a CD4 count taken to determine if the employee is ready to start anti-retroviral therapy.

Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART)

When ART was first introduced, many of the employees who began therapy were HIV-advanced and often very ill. The outcomes in this group were variable. However, with improved voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and the employee wellness programmes in place, the decision to treat will be made earlier in many instances and it is likely the outcomes will be better in the future.