The SA mining sector has extremely high HIV/Aids prevalence rates. In some mining companies, more than 30% of workers are infected.
Among the Impala Platinum mining community, Aids prevalence is about 24%. But the company says that a communication strategy implemented in 1992 has helped keep prevalence rates at about 16% among its workers.
From posters to workshops, using peer educators, newsletters, an Aids helpline and counselling services, the company has bombarded workers with information about Aids.
"One of the biggest challenges has been balancing messages that urge workers to stay negative, while giving hope to those who are infected that the disease can be managed," says Implats Aids programme director Jon Andrews.
Existing employees attend at least one HIV/Aids workshop a year. The workshops are run by Implats employees, many of whom have HIV/Aids themselves. New employees are required to attend a workshop and afterwards complete a simple Aids questionnaire.
"In this way we can see if we're winning the war on awareness and education," says Andrews.
Implats has also managed to bring traditional healers into the fold - a key link in the communication chain.
"Almost all workers go to traditional healers before they visit our own doctors," says Andrews. "Previously, Western-style doctors and traditional healers were giving patients competing information. We needed to establish a united front."
Implats has worked with more than 100 traditional healers, brainstorming ways to approach the disease. Through the process, traditional healers commit to tell patients that HIV cannot be cured, but can be managed.
"Previously we had a problem with managing and treating sick workers, because they were unsure which healer - the Western or the traditional - to believe," says Andrews.
Though traditional healers have had huge success in treating opportunistic infections such as oral thrush, they were less effective in treating tuberculosis - one of the biggest causes of Aids-related deaths. "Traditional healers have agreed to refer patients with tuberculosis to Implats doctors and in return we refer patients to them to treat the psychosomatic and psychological elements of the disease," says Andrews.
Recently, 20 traditional healers publicly took HIV tests at Impala Hospital.
"This is truly remarkable," says Andrews. "It demonstrates true leadership on their part. For them to come forward and ask Western doctors to use Western technology to test their status requires enormous courage and trust. These are not anonymous tests."
The success of Implats' communication programme shows in the numbers. In a recent Markinor survey, 100% of Implats workers were aware of HIV/Aids, 98% understood it was a sexually transmitted disease, and 70% said they have changed their sexual behaviour as a result of the campaigns. Those are impressive results for a country where even top politicians question the link between HIV and Aids.
