HIV/AIDS an imminent threat to the economy

Wahyoe Boediwardhana The Jakarta Post Denpasar, Bali

With over 80 percent of the 130,000 people with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia in their productive years, between 20 years and 49 years of age, the epidemic may badly hurt the country's economy, an influential businessman says.

"With the large and increasing number of people living with HIV/AIDS, it will adversely influence our businesses, communities and nation," the chairman of the National Business Alliance on HIV/AIDS (NBA) Hadi S. Topobroto said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Asia Pacific HIV/AIDS Private Sector Mobilization Workshop in Legian, Kuta, Hadi underlined the fact that HIV/AIDS had become the world's worst epidemic.

Highlighting the economic cost of the epidemic, Hadi said a country where 15 percent of the population had contracted HIV/AIDS would suffer a one percent decrease in GDP per year.

"Let take South Africa, which has a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. It has been estimated the country will suffer a decrease in GDP of up to 17 percent by 2010," he said.

South Africa will not be the only sub-Sahara African country to face this plight as eight another countries are also expected to be in a similar situation.

The sub-Sahara African region currently has at least 29.4 million people with HIV/AIDS out of a total of 42 million throughout the world.

"It is estimated that one million people have been infected with the virus in the Asia-Pacific region this year, raising the total number of people with HIV/AIDS in the region to 7.4 million, the second largest after the sub-Sahara Africa," Hadi said.

"This is a grim picture for this nation, particularly for the private sector. Therefore employers and company' owners have the responsibility to protect their workers from the threat of HIV/AIDS infection," he said.

Males represent around 75 percent of the 3,568 recorded HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia, with Jakarta being the area with the highest prevalence, followed by Papua, East Java, Riau and Bali. The main causes of transmission were unsafe heterosexual intercourse (53.7 percent) and needle-sharing among injecting drugs users (20.9 percent).

Separately, the International Labor Organization (ILO) country director Alan Boulton said the workshop was part of the campaign to fight HIV/AIDS in the private sector, particularly in the workplace.

"The participating businessmen could share and discuss this issue in a constructive environment, where those who already have experience in coping with HIV/AIDS in workplace could inform and teach the other businessmen of their experiences," he said.

The three-day workshop, coorganized by ILO, NBA and UNAIDS, is being attended by businessmen from ASEAN member countries as well as China, Nepal, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.