Cutting the Cost of HIV

Companies doing business in the developing world have to contend with the staggering human and financial costs of HIV infection—and most would agree that conventional approaches to controlling the epidemic aren’t working. In our experience in the labor-intensive mining industries of Russia, South Africa, and Botswana, we’ve seen infection rates among workers exceeding 90% in extreme cases and productivity losses as high as 30%. Efforts to prevent the spread of HIV infection have been only modestly effective, and so treatment is vitally important. But antiretroviral therapies and their associated health maintenance programs are extremely expensive. In our work with the largest mining companies in the world, we’ve found few that can afford to fund the total lifetime cost of treating workers—which can range from $400,000 to $900,000 per person.