Reuters NewMedia - September 26, 2002
ATLANTA, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Soft drink giant Coca-Cola Co. KO.N , which has been criticized for not doing enough to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa, announced on Thursday that 40 of its bottlers there were expanding HIV/AIDS benefits for workers on the continent.
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola said some 24,000 of the 60,000 workers employed by its bottling partners in Africa would be eligible for expanded health-care benefits, including access to anti-retroviral AIDS drugs, under the new program.
Workers' spouses also will receive access to the benefits.
Bottling employees will likely have to shoulder a small part of the costs of the new program, although that will vary from bottler to bottler.
Coca-Cola, which already provides its 1,200 workers in Africa with HIV/AIDS benefits, said the expanded program would receive from $4 million to $5 million each year in funds from its Coca-Cola Africa Foundation.
The foundation was set up last year to fight the disease and promote community outreach programs in Africa.
Robert Lindsay, a spokesman for Coca-Cola's Africa unit and president of the foundation, said the new benefits would be rolled out initially in 19 countries, mostly in southern and eastern Africa where AIDS has exacted its heaviest toll.
The company expects full implementation of the program to take up to a year.
More than 17 million Africans have died of AIDS and 25 million others have been infected with the disease. In sub-Saharan Botswana, for instance, more than a third of residents are infected.
'HUGE CHALLENGE'
"All of our bottling partners see this for what it is, which is a huge challenge for the continent," said Lindsay, who noted that Coca-Cola's African bottlers were independent firms with work forces ranging in size from 35 to 2,000 employees.
"I think they're all going through their own internal processes of assessing the program, and we are confident and hopeful that in due course all of our partners will be part of a program," Lindsay said.
Coca-Cola's bottlers will be following in the footsteps of a number of large multinational companies that have extended AIDS drug programs to their workers in Africa.
Last month, global mining firm Anglo American AGLJ.J announced that it would make antiretroviral drugs available to its HIV-positive miners for as long as they were able to keep working.
Coca-Cola's decision to expand AIDS benefits also comes about six months after activists protested the company's policies in Africa during its annual shareholders meeting in New York.
Act Up, a group opposing AIDS discrimination, described the extension of benefits on Thursday as a small and insufficient step that did not come close to covering a majority of those who worked for Coca-Cola's partners and franchisees in Africa.
"This is simply not good enough," said Sharon Ann Lynch, a member of the group in New York, who added that activists planned to continue pressuring Coca-Cola to extend full AIDS coverage and treatment to its workers in Africa and elsewhere.
Shares of Coca-Cola fell 33 cents to $48.16 in afternoon trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.