terça-feira, janeiro 25, 2005
Empresas e o VIH
BBC 20.01.05
Businesses fail to plan for HIV
Companies fail to draw up plans to cope with HIV/Aids until it affects 20% of people in a country, new research says.
The finding comes in a report published on Thursday by the World Economic Forum, Harvard and the UN aids agency.
"Too few companies are responding proactively to the social and business threats," said Dr Kate Taylor, head of the WEF's global Health Initiative. Nearly 9,000 business leaders in 104 countries were surveyed for Business and HIV/AIDS: Commitment and Action?
Too little, too late
Dr Taylor described the level of action taken by businesses as revealed by the report as "too little, too late". The issue will be highlighted to business and world leaders at the World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos, Switzerland, next week.
The WEF report shows that despite the fact that 14,000 people contract HIV/Aids every day, concern among businesses has dropped by 23% in the last 12 months. Most (71%) have no policies in place to address the disease. Nor could over 65% of the business leaders surveyed say or estimate the prevalence of HIV among their staff.
The UN programme tackling Aids, UNAIDS, pointed out that having a clear strategy for dealing with HIV/Aids was a good investment as well as being socially responsible.
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Confidentiality is key
The WEF report concludes that businesses need to understand their exposure to HIV/Aids risks and come up with good local practices to manage them.
A key priority, in both high and low-prevalence settings, said the WEF is to establish a policy based on non-discrimination and confidentiality.
