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Ch. Prashanth Reddy

Hyderabad , Dec 29

AT the broadest level, businesses are stated to be dependent on the strength and vitality of their workers and customer base. In this context, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) increases the cost of doing business, reduces productivity and depresses overall demand, according to the Regional Human Development Report on `HIV/AIDS and human development in South Asia 2003' brought out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The report states that the visible effects of AIDS at the workplace are a concern for managers at all levels, from the shop floor supervisors to the top management. Apart from loss of experienced personnel, increased recruitment and training costs and higher labour turnover, there is also evidence of absenteeism due to AIDS-related illnesses, the need to care for others, and to attend funerals. In Chennai, according to UNAIDS, industrial labour absenteeism is expected to double because of AIDS.

In addition, it is pointed out, there is a possibility of legal action related to discrimination against HIV infected employees and possible loss of customer base.

Though studies in sub-Saharan Africa indicated that the impact of AIDS on staff turnover was minimal, firms were having a significant problem in replacing professional staff. Hence, some of the multinationals in South Africa are hiring three workers for each skilled position to ensure that replacements are on hand when trained workers die.

HIV/AIDS, the report states, could adversely affect the customer base of companies, since the group hardest hit by AIDS is also the group with more purchasing power. Spending will be redirected away from a host of sectors to the health sector, which could see increased demand. However, such effects are not readily detected by individual firms because of the dissipation of spending implications across local and international economies.

HIV/AIDS also stated be having a significant impact on agricultural activities, which are largely labour intensive. A study for Rwanda estimated that the loss of a female adult member of an agricultural household could lead to a nearly 50 per cent decline in its farm labour inputs. Similar results have been documented elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the consequences of this had been a shift to less labour-intensive cash crops, decline in cultivated area and less animal husbandry.

A household survey in Zimbabwe revealed that AIDS-affected households experienced significant declines in production - on average 61 per cent in maize production, 47 per cent in cotton and 37 per cent in groundnut . As per the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model-based simulations undertaken by Arndt and Lewis in South Africa in 2001, value added in the agricultural sector in the country would be 17 per cent lower in 2010 under a projected AIDS scenario compared to a situation of no AIDS.

New evidence on the links between HIV/AIDS and growth of real income per capita, according to the report, shows that the epidemic would have reduced worldwide annual rate of growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by nearly 0.06 percentage points below what it would have in the absence of AIDS during 1980-98. In the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the reduction in the annual rate of growth on income per capita is estimated to be the order of 0.15 percentage points in the same period.

Stating that HIV/AIDS has emerged as the single most formidable challenge to public health, human rights and development in the new millennium, the report cited that so far over 25 million people have died of AIDS worldwide, with 3.1 million deaths in 2002. An estimated 42 million people are presently living with HIV/AIDS and 5 million new infections occurred in 2002 alone.

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