That the incidence of infection is growing in the
areas that offer cheap labor—such as China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe—is
not accidental. As manufacturing facilities spring up, a segment of the
developing world population that we might call “mobile men with money”
increases. These are men who spend a good deal of their time travelling on
business, with the income and opportunity to indulge in sex and drugs, thereby
placing themselves and their families at risk of infection.
In Asia, where approximately 7.4 million people now live with HIV, the
virus is spreading so rapidly that if present rates continue, the cases there
will outnumber those in Africa within a decade. Health experts estimate that at
least 300,000 people contracted HIV in India in 2003, bringing the total to
somewhere between 4.3 and 5.3 million. The low incidence of reported cases in
China obscures the fact that serious, concentrated epidemics have been under way
for many years in certain regions, including the booming manufacturing province
of Guangdong, and are on the verge of taking off in several others. If these
countries follow an African-type trajectory, their advantages of low-cost labor
and their growing consumer classes will be adversely affected. Given the
seven-year plus lag between HIV infection and AIDS, businesses operating in Asia
may not actually experience the devastating effects until a crisis is under way,
at which time it will be a costly problem to manage. Businesses in countries
with lower prevalence of the disease should consider how to leverage their core
business strengths, such as marketing, to beat the stigma of AIDS by publicizing
prevention techniques to workers and to the community. Businesses in
higher-prevalence countries should explore investment in their workforces by
offering voluntary counselling, testing and treatment programs, including access
to AIDS drugs.
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