Kgalagadi Breweries continues HIV/AIDS fight

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Monday December 13, 2010 00:00

Tshelang (stay alive) project launched in 2001, provides a consistent set of guidelines for managing employees with HIV, AIDS and other chronic diseases. 

KBL corporate communications manager, Mokoro Ketsitlile said over the past decade, the two companies have consistently made calls to all stakeholders to tackle HIV/AIDS prejudice.  He said they have realised that one of the barriers to effective treatment is the complex nature of the disease, which creates both stigma and prejudice.  Ketsitlile said the programme is meant to ensure the fair and consistent treatment and support for all KBL and BBL employees, and also manage the spread of HIV by providing employees and their families with education awareness programmes and access to voluntary counseling and test.

Once diagnosed HIV positive, he said,  employees have access to the company's managed healthcare system, which includes free anti-retroviral drugs for employees and their immediate dependants.  Project Tshelang also provides medical assistance for chronic illnesses such as arthritis, asthma, epilepsy, gout, heart conditions, hypertension, throid dysfunction and Hepatitis A, B, and C.

Ketsitlile said some employees of the two companies who have been living with HIV have over the years championed communications to fellow employees. He quotes one of the employees as saying; 'When you are positive like me and you tell other people, you give them hope, and when they see you healthy as I am, they know this is a condition that can be managed successfully.'

'The reduction of HIV/AIDS is one of KBL and BBL's ten priorities because aside from the social and moral imperative to take action, our extensive presence in Botswana makes it commercially important that we take steps to reduce the spread of the disease,' said KBL's Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategy, Thapelo Letsholo.

According to the latest figures published by the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the HIV pandemic is increasing in every region of the world, with over 33.4 million people with HIV worldwide.  In Botswana, like many countries, new infections occur every year.