Workers
Chinyere Bassey
Lagos, May 25, 2018 ( NAN) The International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Friday says the number of workers who die as a result of HIV/AIDS is projected to decline in 2020.
The ILO noted in its report that the number of workers whose death were attributed to HIV and AIDS was
projected to fall to 425,000 in 2020, from 1.3 million in 2005.
Guy Ryder, the ILO Director General, said the report was prepared in collaboration with UN
Programme for HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
According to him, billions of dollars which should be earned are lost to HIV and AIDS, in addition to human suffering, largely as a result of death of hundreds of thousands of workers that can be prevented with treatment.
He said lost earnings attributable to AIDS as a result of death or inability to work showed substantial decline from 2005, when it went up to 17 billion dollars.
He, however, added that it was still projected to amount to 7.2 billion dollars in 2020.
He further said that the ILO report would examine how the evolution of the HIV epidemic and the scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) impacted the global labour force.
He added that “the report also seeks to assess the economic and social impacts of HIV on workers and
their households.”
The ILO director general said the greatest incidence of mortality was among workers in their late 30s, stressing that “this is the age workers are normally at the peak of their productive
lives. These deaths are totally avoidable if treatment is scaled up and fast tracked.”
Ryder noted that it was good that AIDS treatment was keeping workers productive and that the number of workers living with HIV either fully or partially unable to work had reduced since 2005.
He said that the trend was projected to continue and that the number of those estimated to be fully unable to work was expected to decline to about 40,000 in 2020 from a 2005 level of about 350,000.
The ILO boss added that the report showed an 85 per cent decline for men and a 93 per cent decline for
women. ( NAN)
CHIN/HA
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Edited by Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu