IT: The latest weapon in the anti-AIDS war

HIV/AIDS is sweeping through the South African workforce, infecting people of all ages, races and income groups - including white-collar workers who previously assumed they were immune.

As the pandemic decimates the SA skills base, companies are starting to count the costs of HIV/AIDS and are stepping in to help stop its spread.

Several major companies have committed to comprehensive HIV/AIDS programmes that include awareness campaigns, staff testing, counselling and medical care, as well as antiretroviral drugs and complementary healthcare. Software developers are also stepping in with programs to help companies manage HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

As the pandemic sweeps through all levels of the South African workforce, the long-term impact on the economy could prove devastating. The future skills base is threatened as the number of AIDS orphans increases and the number of teachers drops. Absenteeism, low morale and productivity drops occur where workers feel the effects of loved ones` HIV infection. In addition, the disease cuts into customer bases and reduces the amount of disposable income families have, as breadwinners succumb to AIDS.

Recognising the threat HIV/AIDS poses to business, the IT Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) has committed to driving HIV/AIDS awareness initiatives in a bid to ensure that the economy will have a "skills feeder system" in future. The SETA says that unless effective programmes are put into place at grassroots and primary school level, there will be a "skills vacuum" in several years.

Dr Denis Cronson, MD of HealthInsite and an expert in the field of HIV/AIDS in business, says: "As predicted by some analysts, HIV/AIDS is now having a significant effect on companies` bottom lines. Recent projections from the Bureau for Economic Research show a decline in South African GDP of between 1.5% and 6% annually over the next 10 years, which will be directly attributed to the impact of AIDS.

"The Financial Times quotes the Central Bank of Botswana as saying the HIV/AIDS pandemic there could halve its economic growth rate over the next 15 years if left untreated. Their Botswana forecasts predict the disease may shave as much as 3% off growth."

Cronson says an apparent apathy among so-called "high intellectual capital" organisations is particularly disturbing.

"Companies with highly skilled, predominantly white-collar employees believe their organisations are at minimal risk of suffering from the economic impact of HIV," he says. "It is true that the prevalence of HIV among highly skilled and educated employees is much lower than a factory floor employee base, but arguably, the strategic impact of losing even a very small number of highly skilled, mission-critical employees through HIV is far more profound than a much larger number of low skilled - and ultimately replaceable - employees.

We are starting to see the impact of AIDS in industries that thought they would never be affected by the virus.

Dr Denis Cronson, MD, HealthInsite

"A 2% HIV prevalence rate among higher-level decision-makers would have roughly the same economic impact on a company than a 50% prevalence rate among lower-end employees. In addition to this is the higher strategic risk to companies through loss of experience, labour and legal disputes as well as client relationships and potential loss of company visionaries," Cronson says.

Indutech, a developer of HIV/AIDS management software for business, says it is estimated that up to 15% of the country`s skilled workforce will be HIV positive by 2010. The company says five million people - one in four of all sexually active South Africans - have contracted the disease and current estimates put the final loss of economically active and productive members of the population at 25% to 35%. Employees at particular risk are migrants, hostel dwellers, drivers and others who spend a lot of time away from home. Over the next 10 years, when currently affected people begin to die, South African companies will be losing 4% of their employees every year.

HIV/AIDS impact audits performed by Cronson at top South African companies have revealed that the economic impact of AIDS extends far beyond obvious costs such as sick leave, recruitment, loss of productivity and training. There are many hidden costs including product quality, management time spent on the HIV issue and human capital investment costs that must also be taken into account. Cronson notes that at a strategic level, the impact of losing productivity from a high-level manager far exceeds traditional costs associated with HIV/AIDS impact on lower-level employees.

"The ICT sector is scrutinised with regards to many issues in terms of operating in SA, from black economic empowerment to employment equity - all of which are vital for allowing this industry to prevail in SA and into the future," says Wolfgang Jakob, CEO of T-Systems South Africa. "However, the effect HIV/AIDS will have on the ICT business sector will have a far more reaching impact than what most white-collar workers will be willing to admit. The reach of the HIV/AIDS virus stretches through all races, income groups, genders and working environments and needs to be viewed and responded to with such an understanding."

AIDS also has a direct influence on consumer demographics, buying patterns and debt figures. "Even if one feels unaffected in the workplace, you are being touched by AIDS through the changing face of markets. It should be disturbing to company executives and shareholders that long-term business and marketing strategies are still designed without decision-makers understanding the impact of AIDS. The tools exist - it is just a matter of implementing them," says Cronson.

Even if one feels unaffected in the workplace, you are being touched by AIDS through the changing face of markets.

Wolfgang Jakob, CEO, T-Systems South Africa

IBM SA human resources director Dudu Nyamane agrees that the corporate world has a significant role to play in the battle against HIV/AIDS because of its financial strength and resource, and the daily contact it has with millions of South Africans. "It`s also in the interests of business to operate in a healthy marketplace," she points out.

"If each of the thousands of businesses in SA put even the simplest proactive HIV/AIDS programme in place, there would be a quantum leap in the levels of knowledge among South Africans about the condition," she says.

Many international companies operating in SA have had HIV programmes in place for some time. Smaller companies are now starting to follow suit.

IBM SA has had an HIV programme for employees for several years and the company says its benefits are measurable. Nyamane says one of the benefits of the programme is that it has reduced HIV/AIDS-related annual sick days per person from 25 to four. It has also boosted staff awareness and may have helped to curb the spread of the disease.

"Those of our staff who have HIV/AIDS are actually feeling better," Nyamane says. "They can participate and contribute more both at work and at home - and that increases their sense of well-being. IBM SA spends R20 000 per person per year on the treatment programme, which was developed for IBM by the Innovir Institute. This covers the cost of triple therapy antiretroviral drugs and regular monitoring by on-site doctors and counsellors.

The company also makes educational material freely available to all levels of staff via two HIV/AIDS kiosks at IBM SA`s Sandton head office. The kiosks use voice guidance, in all 11 official languages, and animated graphics on a touch-screen to give easy access to information to people with no computer skills. The software was developed by South African adult education and training organisation, Self Empowerment International.

"We`re using technology to enhance and extend our existing HIV/AIDS education programme, because lectures or seminars alone simply don`t work," Nyamane says. "People either don`t want to be seen at such lectures, or they can`t organise their work schedules to fit them in.

"With the kiosks, people can access information in their own time and at their own pace, homing in on the information that is relevant to their own circumstances. Also, the physical presence of the kiosk in public areas brings the whole HIV/AIDS issue into the open."

T-Systems is also taking proactive steps to combat HIV/AIDS in the workplace. The company says as part of its HIV/AIDS programme, it was the first South African ICT company to undergo internal voluntary prevalence testing to assess the impact of the pandemic on the business. This entailed testing carried out at 40 T-Systems locations across the country, with a participation rate of 78%.

"Taking a proactive stance of understanding the percentage of our workforce that may be HIV positive will provide us with a clear direction of how to ensure continuity of services to our clients in the event of the virus impacting on our workforce," says Jakob.

"With a response rate of 78%, we are bound to get a realistic preview of how the virus may affect our staff," explains Mardia van der Walt-Korsten, GM of human resources. "This testing falls in line with T-Systems` HIV/AIDS awareness programme, which was initiated in July 2002 and has since increased the level of awareness, education and course of action available to both our employees and our intervention at a community level."

As companies attempt to control HIV within the workplace, new IT tools are emerging to help human resources departments track and manage the disease.

Most of SA`s skilled workforce believe they are at a very low risk of contracting the virus.

Yoram Percale, CEO, Echoteq

One such product, Eden for HIV/AIDS, is a software tool developed primarily for the automotive industry by Stellenbosch University`s Global Competitiveness Centre and marketed by Cape-based Indutech. The software is being rolled out in the automotive industry, which employs over 250 000 people.

Indutech says the program is intended for use by HR managers and other employers who have been tasked to implement and manage an HIV/AIDS workplace programme. It combines the information and capabilities required to plan, execute and control an effective HIV/AIDS programme.

Among other things, Eden includes A-Z management maps for HIV/AIDS management, with sections covering pre-intervention (assessments, policy writing, strategy formulation, negotiations); intervention (guiding the company through the execution phase of the programme); and treatment (guiding the user to the various options available for therapy and treatment).

Echoteq, a subsidiary of Ovations Technologies, launched a solution called ActionAIDS last year, to generate awareness of HIV/AIDS among PC-based employees. The company has now signed a deal with a reseller partner Managed Health Care Business (MHCB), which will sell, implement and support ActionAIDS as well as provide consulting and business process engineering services.

Conceptualised by Gerhard Smit, MHCB is made up of IT and medical professionals. "Our core focus revolves around service delivery in terms of system development, business process re-engineering, implementing, training and post-implementation support," says Smit.

Echoteq CEO Yoram Percale says the partnership will extend the reach of ActionAIDS, which is targeted at the skilled workforce. "Most of SA`s skilled workforce believe they are at a very low risk of contracting the virus and are therefore not interested in learning more about its prevention, treatment, impact and workplace ethics," says Percale.

Meditech SA, which provides healthcare information solutions to the state and private sectors, recently announced that AngloGold is using one of its systems to pilot a comprehensive AIDS reporting tool which has been drafted by the Global Reporting Initiative, an organisation empowered at the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development to develop a set of reporting standards for all sustainability issues, including AIDS.

AngloGold uses Meditech to analyse the impact of AIDS on healthcare costs, giving drill-down information on disease profiles, medical usage and utilisation of facilities, enabling the mining group to estimate the current and future cost impact of AIDS.

Dr Petra Kruger, manager of the HIV/AIDS programme at AngloGold, says the AIDS programme is not just about calculating the monetary costs of AIDS. "We have some 40 000 employees in our SA operations and we estimate that 25% to 30% of them are HIV-positive," she says. "Our overall programme is very much aimed at preventing the spread of AIDS, as well as treating those employees who are infected, through a chronic disease management programme to prolong their productive lifespan."

AIDS InSite, developed locally by healthcare solution provider HealthInSite, is a curriculum-driven HIV/AIDS management program that enables companies to implement a comprehensive workplace strategy to deal with the corporate impact of this pandemic. The effective management of the impact of HIV/AIDS is widely believed to be one of the most compelling business challenges of the next decade, specifically in Africa.

Companies are sitting on a time-bomb, and their inactivity in dealing with HIV/AIDS simply amounts to poor corporate governance.

Dr Denis Cronson, MD, HealthInsite

AIDS InSite uses the Internet as a delivery and co-ordination mechanism for HIV/AIDS programmes, combining a comprehensive HIV/AIDS information Web site with e-mail communications, extensive printed material libraries, education and training modules and face-to-face services. It covers several dimensions of HIV/AIDS prevention and impact management, incorporating actuarial business impact modelling and forecasting, HIV/AIDS strategic planning, a management decision-support service, human resource management tools, and education and training support.

"Companies are starting to see the impact of HIV/AIDS on their bottom line," says Cronson. "The perception that AIDS is affecting only certain industries and certain organisational levels is a myth. Companies are sitting on a time-bomb, and their inactivity in dealing with HIV/AIDS simply amounts to poor corporate governance.

"Using IT as a backbone enables us to efficiently and cost-effectively distribute health management resources, co-ordinate HIV/AIDS educators across an entire organisation and measure the human and financial impact within a company," he says.

HIV/AIDS experts point out that the problem extends beyond the social sphere. It is impacting on the skills base, the economy in which companies operate and their target markets. Without intervention at all levels, business could face an HIV crisis within the next few years.

Companies that already have HIV/AIDS programmes in place report that the programmes are cost-effective and a major boost for staff morale - whether staff are affected by HIV or not.

Combating the pandemic would appear to involve some corporate investment in management tools and information campaigns, as well as in medical subsidisation. But the return on investment could ultimately be far bigger than anticipated.