The first Private-Sector Conference on HIV/Aids was opened on Wednesday morning by Jerry Vilakazi, the new CEO of Business Unity South Africa (Busa), at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg.
The conference was organised by the South African Coalition on HIV/Aids (Sabcoha).
“Stigma, counselling and testing, access to medical-aid cover and appropriate treatment are among the issues that will be addressed by approximately 220 delegates who represent medium and large private sector, international donor agencies, government, research and academia,” Sabcoha said in a statement.
“HIV and Aids are issues very close to business and very close to everyone living and working in the country. We are all affected by the epidemic in some way, at our workplace and in our private lives,” Vilakazi said in his keynote address, while urging organised business to honour its role in helping South Africa manage the magnitude of the problem.
Vilakazi saluted Wednesday’s gathering of diverse practitioners, saying: “This conference will fuel our collective will. We all acknowledge that HIV and Aids is a major threat for business. It adversely affects employees. It decreases consumers’ spending power and the market size for the products we produce.”
Another priority for Vilakazi is to reduce the loss of irreplaceable skills due to Aids-related deaths by workers who specialise in a particular skill.
The aim of the conference is to achieve a more coordinated approach to HIV and Aids inside and outside workplaces, the statement said.
Brad Mears, Sabcoha CEO, insisted that the conference will produce concrete outcomes and commitments from delegates not only on how to talk about building partnerships, but also how to strengthen existing relationships through concrete and coordinated action and common messages.
Also addressing the delegates on Wednesday morning was Mpho Letlape, the human-resources director of Eskom and Sabcoha’s newly elected chairperson.
For Letlape, stigma is still a major challenge to achieving what she says is the next step in HIV/Aids care — testing, counselling and treatment, which builds on the more established approach of voluntary counselling and testing. — I-Net Bridge