UNICEF and Roche have partnered to improve the lives of children orphaned by AIDS. Roche, the pharmaceutical company, will provide funding to UNICEF Switzerland to supply desks, uniforms, textbooks and other materials to schools in Africa attended by children orphaned by Aids. Roche is already partnered with the European Coalition of Positive People and is involved with the Schools for Africa project established by UNICEF in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Roche will give a portion of funds raised during its Global Roche Employee AIDS Walk to UNICEF. The walk is an employee initiative where any money that is raised is matched by Roche.
Jamaican companies are to fight HIV/AIDS discrimination and stigma. Nineteen companies launched the Jamaica Business Council on HIV/AIDS in September.
The council will consist of members of the business community and the body will put policies in place that aim to eliminate discrimination in the workplace with regard to HIV/AIDS. Council representatives will be encouraged to support the council’s policies, and to adopt prevention and treatment strategies in the workplace. Merck provided $100,000 to set up the council.
Companies that support it are Cable & Wireless Jamaica, Red Stripe Diageo and Capital & Credit Financial Group among others. An estimated 22,000 Jamaicans are living with HIV/AIDS.
South Africa’s senior companies are not tackling HIV/AIDS as effectively as they should, according to PeopleManagement, an HIV/AIDS workplace programme company that consults large enterprises in
South Africa.
Nearly one in five (19%) of employees between the ages of 19 and 64 are infected and 943 people die per day in South Africa of the disease.
PeopleManagement have designed a toolkit called Know Your Status and so far the campaign has reached 50,000 employees.
It is a self-help programme that can be used by companies to test and educate employees. It also includes an initiative to encourage the employee to take the information to his or her family and community.
Pharmaceutical companies are not doing enough to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa, according to the Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility, representing 275 institutions managing $100bn of assets.
The ICCR said that companies are falling short of their response, especially with regard to developing drugs for children living with the disease. The ICCR benchmarked 15 pharmaceutical companies and found that even though some have implemented a few best practice policies to HIV/AIDS, not one company has thus far implemented a comprehensive response to the pandemic.
These concerns follow those reflected in an earlier report – Big Pharma & Small Patients – published last year, emphasising the need for cheaper, new formulations of drugs for children – such as chewable tablets and syrups that do not need to be refrigerated in hot climates.
Contact: Daniel Rosan, Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility 001 212 870 2295 www.iccr.org
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The United Nations Association of the United States and Procter & Gamble have joined forces to educate teenagers about HIV/AIDS in Africa. BeingGirl.com, a P&G website aimed at teenage girls, has chronicled the experiences of 11 American teens as they visit Africa for one month each.
Procter & Gamble will provide 35m litres of water to 1m children in Africa as part of its Children’s Safe Drinking Water programme in partnership with Population Services International. Through PSI’s private sector and community outreach projects the partnership will further provide another 100m litres of safe drinking water in Africa. The estimated financial commitment from P&G over three years is $5m and the company will also provide technical, marketing and communications expertise. P&G’s PUR water purifier, a powdered water treatment product that reduces illness such as diarrhoea by 50%, is used.
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