Policy on treatment here soon
Public workers with HIV/Aids may soon benefit from free treatment if a new policy is approved.
Information available to The Monitor indicates that the government is fine-tuning a policy to treat all its employees living with HIV/Aids.
Mr Orone Atibo, the under secretary in the Ministry of Finance, yesterday said that the government had planned for anti-retroviral drugs for its workers in the 2003/4 Budget.
Atibo announced the good news yesterday during an HIV/Aids sensitisation workshop for government employees at the Kampala Regency Hotel.
Potential beneficiaries would have to test for HIV/Aids to confirm their sero status.
Ms Hope Mwesiga from the Ministry of Public Service said that a survey conducted last December indicates that at least 3 percent of public servants died of Aids-related causes between 1995 and 1999.
She said that Aids is a threat to both the private and public sectors.
Mwesiga said that a national policy on HIV/Aids at the workplace would be out soon as part of the human resource policy review.
Employers should provide Aids drugs for staff, she said.
In addition workers should not be discriminated against because of their HIV status.
Mwesiga said that the new national policy would address challenges such as potential employees being subjected to mandatory HIV testing and the likely absenteeism by workers living with HIV/Aids.
The aim of the workshop, attended by about 50 public servants, was to integrate HIV/Aids in the daily workings of the Ministry of Finance.
