bat south africa - HIV/AIDS campaigns

Companies across the globe are continually benchmarking and learning how to run sustainable HIV/AIDS intervention programmes. We face the same challenge with our HIV/AIDS programme which was launched at the end of 2002.

The 2003 HIV/AIDS “Know Your Status” campaign, which was conducted countrywide, returned the following results:

• 70 % of employees volunteered to undergo confidential HIV/AIDS testing.
• 4.4% of employees tested HIV-positive.

Drawing insights from the 2003 HIV/AIDS campaign, we decided that unless properly managed, other chronic lifestyle illnesses are equally life threatening and can impact on employee wellness. The HIV/AIDS programme therefore evolved into a Wellness Campaign, pitching HIV/AIDS as a manageable chronic illness alongside other chronic lifestyle illnesses.

The 2006 HIV/Wellness ”Own Your Status” campaign that was rolled out countrywide returned the following results:

• 86% of employees participated in the Own Your Status campaign. The campaign included testing for HIV, as well as other lifestyle illnesses; diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and body mass index.
• 74% of the participating employees tested for HIV/AIDS.
• 3.6% of the employees tested HIV positive.

A further HIV/Wellness campaign will be rolled out during 2009.

Any HIV positive employee and one spouse have access to anti-retroviral treatment. The absolutely confidential treatment programme is managed by Qualsa, health risk management specialists within the Metropolitan stable.

Our concern for the emotional and social wellbeing of employees continues through the availability of an Employee Wellness Programme (EWP). This confidential programme, designed to provide professional and confidential assistance for personal concerns, is run by Careways, a private consulting and service company.