HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria should be considered part of the investment risk equation in the region but should not be reasons not to do business, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano told the Southern African Economic Summit held in Durban, South Africa this week. IPS reported that he was backed by major Southern African companies which themselves are addressing the spread of AIDS in the workforce with programmes that, in some case, are ahead of national governments' efforts.

Mining companies, for example, have launched aggressive awareness and prevention campaigns. Mines in South Africa employ around 500,000 workers, who support as many as five million people across the Southern African region. About half the workers employed in South Africa's gold mines come from neighbouring countries and nearly 30 percent of them are living with HIV and AIDS, said the president of the South African Chamber of Mines, Rick Menell.

Most miners live in single-sex hostels in or near South African cities. At first, they had been forced to do this by the former apartheid government, which had sought to contain the influx of black Africans. Now, most of the workers prefer to keep, and visit, their families in good homes and to provide for them as best they can from the hostels. Because of this bachelor lifestyle, many are exposed to HIV and AIDS through, among other things, contact with sex workers. Goldfields, one of South Africa's biggest gold producers, provides workers with three free condoms a week. Every three months or so, the company holds concerts, sports events and rallies, opportunities to warn workers about the dangers of HIV-AIDS and to educate them on prevention.