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WORLD COMMEMORATES AIDS DAY December 1, 2006
Bonny Apunyu
<|aids_antstigma.gif|HIV/Aids ant-stigma sign|left|>(SomaliNet) As the commemorates the international Aids day, More than a million jobs reported being lost every year from the spread of HIV/Aids, with the bulk of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to a report done by the International Labour Organization (ILO) prepared for the World Aids Day, HIV/Aids has had a crippling effect on the workforce of many countries.
The ILO called for sustained action to improve access to antiretroviral (AVR) treatments to cut mortality rates.
Without this, it estimates that the cumulative loss to the global workforce from the virus could rise 45 million by 2010 and almost double again by 2020.
According to ILO, an estimated 36 million people of working age are now living with the virus, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa.
The ILO conducted research into the impact of the virus on 43 countries with some of the highest rates of infection in the world.
More than 70% of these countries were in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on its findings, it has estimated that 1.3 million new jobs have been lost every year between 1992 and 2004 because of the virus.
This, in turn, reduced annual economic growth by an average of 0.5% over the period and 0.7% for sub-Saharan countries.
"HIV/Aids is adding an enormous burden to countries struggling to emerge from poverty," said Odile Frank, one of the report's authors.
"We need more employment opportunities for people with HIV/Aids and an end to discrimination against people with the virus to help them to secure work."
More than two million children around the world are now living with Aids while those aged 15-24 account for half of new infections.
The ILO said many children were forced to seek employment because they were living in extreme poverty, while their parents had either died from Aids or were too sick to work.