South African companies bidding to build an airport on St Helena have triggered fears that their workers may bring the first case of HIV/Aids to the British island.
”At the moment, we have no known cases of HIV or Aids,” said governor Michael Clancy of St Helena, the South Atlantic island located about 1 700km off the coast of Namibia.
St Helena’s ambitious plan to build its first airport by 2010 has been caught up in controversy over the involvement of South African construction firms.
”We have got three consortia who are interested in doing the work. All of those consortia have construction firms from South Africa involved,” Clancy told Agence France-Presse by phone.
”So there has been concern here about the high incidence of HIV and Aids in Southern Africa,” he said.
There has been talk of imposing mandatory HIV testing for the South African workers who want to step foot on the island of 4 000 inhabitants where Napoleon lived out his final days in exile until his death in 1821.
Another option is to launch an HIV awareness campaign to coincide with the arrival of the workers from South Africa, where 5,5-million people are living with HIV or Aids, according to United Nations estimates.
The South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (SAFCEC) has warned that barring contract workers from South Africa would be in violation of international standards.
”It’s quite disturbing,” said SAFCEC spokesperson Muller Uys of the reaction on St Helena. ”I think it’s ignorance.”
”Most of our companies have programmes in place” that deal with HIV and Aids, he stressed.
Clancy said a decision on the Aids controversy could be taken this week. The governor said that building an airport was vital for the economic development of the island, which is currently only accessible by boat.
But he said that the controversy over the possible HIV/Aids threat had been rumbling for the past three months, led by a small vocal group.
”There are strong feelings among some people. I would not say that those people are in the majority but those views are strongly held amongst some people,” said Clancy. – AFP
