Coca-Cola is to be targeted in what appears to be the first of a series of companies singled out by AIDS activists who have begun a campaign to put pressure on multinationals to provide antiretroviral medicines to their HIVpositive employees.

The newly formed Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement said last night that AIDS activists have called for a global day of action on October 17 against Coca-Cola, which they describe as Africa's largest private employer.

The African activists will be part of an international campaign that includes Act UP and Health GAP, both US-based AIDS activist organisations.

Mining giants Anglo American, Anglo Gold and De Beers are the most recent examples of companies that have undertaken to provide treatment, including antiretrovirals, to their workers.

Activists believe such corporate action is not only a moral imperative, but it also puts pressure on governments to follow suit, because it makes it more difficult for them to argue that AIDS treatment is not feasible.

Coca-Cola was being targeted because it "has enjoyed a rapidly growing market, decades of escalating profit and low labour costs in Africa, (but) refuses to pay for HIV treatment for the bulk of its workers".

According to the activists, the company provides treatment to administrative staff, but not to its almost 100000 bottlers and distributors.

The new HIV/AIDS treatment group is also calling for the immediate implementation of the World Health Organisation goal of ensuring antiretroviral treatment for at least 3-million people in the developing world by 2005.