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Strategies & Market Trends : Strictly: Drilling II -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (670)	8/27/2001 9:23:44 AM
From: Roebear	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 36161

Joel, Almost makes me nervous when they talk nice about the yellow dog on IBD: investors.com Best Roebear

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (670)	8/27/2001 10:37:45 AM
From: isopatch	Respond to of 36161

More news about aids problem at S.A. mines bday.co.za "ANGLO ADMITS DEFEAT IN COMBATING AIDS, by Lynn Bolin Anglo American, one of the world's largest mining groups based largely in South Africa, has not been able to curtail the spread of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) amongst its employees despite having an active programme in place for 15 years. Speaking at the HSBC Aids and Financial Markets conference in Cape Town, Anglo's senior vice president of medical issues Brian Brink said the company had seen the HIV-positive prevalence rate rise to an average of 21% across all of its operations, and had now adopted a completely new programme emphasising testing, among other issues, to combat the disease. Brink said that Anglo had been one of the first companies in South Africa to adopt an HIV/Aids programme, and believed it had conducted perhaps more surveys among its staff than any other company in the country. It had found a huge variation in prevalence of the virus among its operations, from 0.6% in one Cape Town-based office to 30% in others, 3.5% in the head office and 19.6% among its community of 10,000 workers in Zambia. Its initial efforts focused on the areas of awareness, education and prevention, and this eventually changed to minimising the impact of Aids on its operations, prevention, and managing the effects of the illness. "Despite our proactive approach to prevention, we have concluded that whatever we have done to prevent the spread of HIV has failed," Brink revealed. "We realized that over the next 15 years we cannot simply do more of the same, we must try to make a real difference." He said the group had developed a revised strategy that management believed could indeed make a difference and could lead to management of the consequences of HIV/Aids. Experience had shown that the virus was growing at a rate of about 2% per year among Anglo's employees, a level that could be combated. The core concepts of Anglo's new strategy included finding a way to change human behaviour, he said, as education and awareness of the dangers had proven not to be enough to make people change their ways. This was simply no longer sufficient. However, this could only be achieved if the reality of HIV/Aids was brought down to an individual level, he said, which was where the importance of encouraging testing and voluntary counselling had to be stressed. Testing was the core of the company's strategy. "The problem is that no one wants to go be tested," he explained. "The vast majority of people who are HIV positive don't even know it and they are spreading the virus unknowingly." The third part of the strategy involved offering wellness programmes, including access to antiretroviral treatment (ART). Early diagnosis was important in the wellness programme, as it had been shown that one's prospects of treatment were much better the earlier the virus was detected. Even though the prices of many of these drugs had fallen considerably, they were still too high, he said. However, the group was receiving a good deal of co-operation in its efforts so far from many of the multinational drug companies, and wanted to continue building good relationships with them. Experience had shown that it was critical to get through to young people, as their behaviour could be influenced, he added. At the same time, mining community interventions were also very important - Anglo's mine managers were required to intervene regularly in the communities in which they operated, visiting brothels and other key areas where HIV was spread to encourage individuals to change their ways. Currently Anglo management was working on a shared strategic analysis of the company's approach to HIV/Aids with its staff, largely represented by the Nation Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Brink added. It was important that both groups worked as partners to fight the spread of the virus and developed a shared vision of what they would like to achieve for the future. The company believed that the cost of its programmes would eventually be outweighed by the benefits its received in gradual gains in productivity, he concluded. Although it was indeed a risky strategy, it was the only one Anglo could pursue in the face of such human suffering."