Although the leadership of the world’s largest business corporations consider themselves the most egotistic representatives of modern society, the worldwide AIDS epidemic has forced them to ponder manpower prospects ten to fifty years from now. These prospects are grim, especially in Ukraine where the epidemic rate places this country ahead of Europe and the United States. Every 70th Ukrainian aged 15-49 is HIV-infected! After assessing the situation, the representatives of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, who recently visited Ukraine, came up with two scenarios, an optimistic and a pessimistic one. In fact, when discussing the problem, they preferred to avoid the optimistic one.
Olena Franchuk, chairperson of Ukraine’s Anti-AIDS Foundation, warned: “We are moving in the pessimistic direction. Seven years from now about 30 percent of Ukrainians may find themselves HIV-infected. This epidemic has surpassed the boundaries of traditional risk groups. Moreover, some 60 percent of the HIV-positive people in Ukraine are not aware of their physical condition. A socioeconomic forecast has it that before 2014 the HIV/AIDS epidemic will have caused a decrease in the Ukrainian population by one million, with 35 and 65 percent of male and female residents respectively dying of AIDS. This, in turn, will cause a six percent GDP decrease and nine percent in terms of overall investments. Worst of all, this problem is not on the national priorities agenda.”
Another threat to Ukraine’s economy is that the AIDS epidemic proves especially widespread in the industrial regions: Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Mykolayiv oblasts. Ukraine’s AIDS visage is mostly urban. Since the largest number of HIV- infected individuals is found among the economically active groups of the population (as elsewhere in the world), we may soon find ourselves faced with the problem of young able- bodied people dying of AIDS.
World Bank official Martin Brasier points out that if the HIV rate remains on today’s level in Ukraine, it will have lost up to 25 percent of the population before 2025. There will be an acute lack of economic population and Ukrainian business will suffer a heavy tax burden. The state and business will then have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on antiretroviral drugs (to sustain the health of able- bodied personnel); hundreds of millions of hryvnias as disability allowances, whereas Ukraine’s business working for GDP will suffer the worst from HIV infection. If Ukrainian business keeps paying for HIV/AIDS-afflicted people, and if their numbers are as predicted now, this epidemic will bankrupt Ukrainian business, period.
Experts say the HIV/AIDS peak will come in 2009. Without a breakthrough in combating this epidemic, with the rate being the same, 2014 will witness 41 percent of deaths caused by AIDS. Therefore, instead of spending huge sums on sustaining able-bodied personnel a couple of years from now, officials from large corporations believe that today it is best to invest in anti-HIV/AIDS educational projects. Richard Holbrooke, president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, is urging Ukrainian businesspeople to combine efforts with him and carry out a data inoculation in Ukraine. He stresses that it was thanks to this educational campaign that the GBC succeeded in lowering the HIV epidemic rate in China, US, and Russia. He added that the sums they are spending on the development of an effective vaccine have not yielded the desired results. Experts say that the HIV virus is very smart: once the physicians come up with a decision, this virus pulls off another trick. Under the circumstances, the best “vaccine” for Ukraine would be an educational campaign, telling people about the risks involved. The state should not be burdened with the whole responsibility, for it won’t be able to cope with it. Richard Holbrooke is convinced that the future of any country depends on its business, so business must shoulder this task. He is aware that business is quite selfish, but with time there comes the understanding that there are things more important than profits. Ukrainian specialists should make trips abroad to share experience with experts in the United States or any advanced European country, like France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and so on.
Experts also say that the media, nonprofit organizations, public figures, and the church should play a special role in this educational campaign. GBC Executive Director Dr. John Tedstrom notes that the AIDS issue gets media coverage ten times more in the United States than in Europe, let alone Ukraine. Pop stars are drawing public attention to it in the course of various charitable projects. As for the church, experts believe that its shepherds could play a major role in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, for a large part of Ukrainians trust the church in the first place. The main thing is for the church not to stand aside from this problem, as was the case in Russia, according to the journalist Vladimir Pozner, when the parishioners were merely urged to offer up prayers.
More than ten Ukrainian companies (Interpipe, 21st Century, Avtovaz, et al.) have combined efforts with the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that unites over 200 world’s leading companies. Add here Ukrainian media market operators and the Donbas Industrial Union that joined the project quite recently. Since the GBC is planning to enlist practically all lines of business in this project, work is now underway with the tourist industry — here the problem is that this industry is wary about the HIV/AIDS issue, for it may hamper its business, in terms of outgoing tourist influx. The main thing is that businesspeople agree that the current situation calls for immediate measures.
