1. HIV/AIDS at workplace:
Protecting yourself (why? how?)
Dr Jean-Jacques BERNATAS, ADB Medical Center
World AIDS Day
01 December 2012

2. HIV/AIDS at workplace in 7 points
• Discrimination and promotion of equality of
opportunity and treatment
• Prevention
• Treatment and care
• Support
• Testing, privacy and confidentiality
• Occupational safety and health
• Children and young persons

3. Discrimination and promotion of equality of
opportunity and treatment
• As an employee:
– protecting myself from misbehavior that could
discourage another employee to get support or access
to prevention or treatment
• As an employer:
– “zero discrimination” on real or perceived HIV status/
recruitment, termination
– to accommodate workload, workplace as much as
possible
– to take measures in/through the workplace to
prevent HIV transmission.

4. Prevention: protecting myself “stricto sensu”
• As an employee:
– Access to accurate, up-to-date relevant information
– Access to education – women and men – to understand and reduce the risk of
HIV transmission
– Promotion and access to VCT
– Access to all means of prevention, as well as PeP
– Measures to reduce high-risk behaviors, including MARP
• As an employer:
– Effective occupational safety and health measures
– Offer access to information, education, means of prevention, VCT, access to
PeP
– Awareness on high-risk behaviours, including for the most at-risk groups
– Awareness and promotion of harm reduction strategies
 Connection to public health authorities, civil society, and NGOs
to get the most relevant and accurate support

5. Treatment and care: it is about protecting
everyone
• As an employee:
– Access to appropriate health services: VCT, ART, nutrition, HIV-
related illnesses including opportunistic infections and STIs
– Access to support and prevention programs for PLwH, including
psychological support
• As an employer:
– To ensure workers living with HIV – and dependents – full access
to curative and preventive health care (public health services,
national security systems, private insurances, …)
– “Zero discrimination” based on real or perceived HIV status in
access to health care and coverage of medical expenses,
disability, and death and survivors’ benefits.

6. Supporting is protecting
• As an employee:
– Supporting in the workplace the coworkers infected or
affected by HIV/AIDS; No rules, but getting the right
information will help to get the right attitude …
• As an employer:
– Promotion of the retention in work and recruitment of
persons living with HIV.
– Extension of support through periods of employment and
unemployment
– HIV infection as an occupational disease or accident when
justified.
– Reasonable accommodation in the workplace for persons
living with HIV or HIV-related illnesses, with due regard to
national conditions

7. Testing, privacy and confidentiality
• As an employee:
– To have free access to VCT without any fear about job access,
job security or opportunities for advancement
• As an employer:
– To offer a free and genuinely voluntary testing, respecting every worker’s
confidentiality
– HIV testing or other forms of screening for HIV should not be required of
workers
– The results of HIV testing should be confidential and not endanger access to
jobs, tenure, job security or opportunities for advancement.
– Workers, including migrant workers, jobseekers and job applicants, should not
be required by countries of origin, of transit or of destination to disclose HIV
related information about themselves or others.

8. Occupational safety and health
• As an employee:
– To have access to the appropriate information about mode of
transmission of HIV and its real risk in the workplace: HIV is not
transmitted by casual physical contact and that the presence of a
person living with HIV should not be considered a workplace hazard.
• As an employer
– To ensure a safe and healthy working environment in order to prevent
transmission of HIV in the workplace:
• universal precautions,
• accident and hazard prevention measures,
• environmental control measures and post exposure prophylaxis and other
safety measures to minimize the risk of contracting HIV and tuberculosis.
– When there is a possibility of exposure to HIV at work, workers should
receive education and training on modes of transmission and
measures to prevent exposure and infection

9. Children and young persons
• Mainly an employer’s matter and every
employee’s awareness:
– To actively participate in the fight against child labour
and child trafficking
– To protect young workers against HIV infection, and to
include the special needs of children and young
persons in the response to HIV and AIDS in national
policies and programs.

10. HIV/AIDS at workplace: a recent
international standard
The first international labour
standard on HIV and AIDS in the
world of work, was adopted by
governments, employers’ and
workers’ representatives from
ILO member States at the
International Labour Conference
in June 2010.

11. Preventing yourself in the workplace: “Yes we
can”, if everyone understands the change of
paradigm about HIV/AIDS
• What is the shift of paradigm about HIV/AIDS?
– A shift from the historical notion of an “acute deadly infectious
disease” to the new evidence of a “chronic (infectious) disease”
– With an appropriate access to ARV and care, the life expectancy is
dramatically increasing (a recent cohort study published in 2011 has found that life expectancy for adults with HIV
treated with antiretrovirals has increased by over 15 years between 1996 and 2008, but is still 13 years less than the general population)
– With an appropriate access to ARV and care, an almost normal
professional life is possible
– To be considered with a similar impact on work attendance as
diabetes, COPD, or other chronic illnesses
Appropriate access to treatment and care is to the
benefit of both employers and HIV-infected workers
The best way to protect your(our)self is to know
your(our) HIV status (At the end of 2011 it is estimated that only half of all people living with
HIV know their HIV status. UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report 2012)

12. Preventing yourself in the workplace: “Yes we
can”, with a relevant workplace policy and
program on HIV/AIDS
• How to take into account the shift of paradigm from “acute
deadly infectious disease” to “chronic (infectious) disease”
at workplace?
– To make a better awareness-raising to employees and
employers
– To implement a participatory approach when a company and its
employees decide to implement a HIV/AIDS program in the
workplace
– To seek for local support: public health authorities, civil society
and NGOs
– Companies to contribute to full access to prevention and
treatment and to actively participate to reach the triple “Zero
New Infections. Zero Discrimination. Zero AIDS-Related
Deaths” goal right away.