Multinational beverage giant Coca Cola is under fire from AIDS activists in the West who are demanding the company pay for HIV/AIDS treatment for its infected workers in developing countries.

Last Thursday, activists in New York and several US cities took to the streets to condemn Coca Cola's alleged refusal to provide AIDS care benefits to thousands of workers in several countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The issue first surfaced in June last year when the company pledged health care coverage to over 1,000 employees in Africa for HIV testing and treatment, but shied away from promising similar benefits to the 100,000 workers it indirectly employs in bottling operations.

But under increasing pressure from a number of rights groups in the United States and Europe, Coca Cola — the largest private employer in Africa — changed its policy and said the bottlers would pay 50 percent of the costs for treatment and drugs. orkers would have to pay 10 percent. But activists say the cost-sharing programme does not provide workers with affordable and equitable access to AIDS treatment.

"This cost-sharing scheme won't work for small and medium sized bottlers," says Allison Dismore of US-based Health GAP. "They can't foot the bill and shouldn't be expected to."

Deadly lurch

The bottlers are worried about paying the high cost of treatment over the long-term, say activists, who themselves are concerned over Coke's policy of withdrawing from the programme as the prices of drugs decrease. They say that means bottlers and workers will have to foot the entire bill. The protesters also fear that the two drug companies involved in the plan, GlaxoSmithKline and PharmAccess International, will not allow purchases of generic drugs, which are far cheaper.

"Even as a first step, the plan leaves the majority of Coke's workers and their dependents in a deadly lurch," says Health Gap's Sharonann Lynch.

"Fifteen months have passed since Coke first claimed it would negotiate with the bottlers to cover AIDS drugs. Coke's glacial pace contradicts the company's rhetoric of compassion and action."

A company spokeswoman said Coca Cola provides health care to its 1,200 employees in Africa, but the responsibility for the tens of thousands of bottling workers rests with the bottlers.

"Our 40 bottling partners in Africa, who are independent companies, are at various stages of developing their strategies," said Sonia Soutus. "They are responsible for providing health care for their employees."

Company must bear costs

Last month, the Coca Cola Foundation launched a programme to assist bottlers to expand existing health care programmes to include anti-retroviral (AIDS) drugs for their 60,000 employees, according to a company statement.

Today, more than 45 percent of all bottling employees are on this plan or other plans that include anti-retroviral drugs, it continued. "We are engaged in our dialogue with our bottlers," says Soutus.

Activists say the company, not bottlers, must bear the costs for treatment and sex education of all those who work for Coca Cola. "Workers are too poor to cover a 10 percent co-payment on medicines," says John Riley of New York-based ACT UP. "We don't want people to make choices between food and drugs."

The company claims bottlers' plans include treatment for workers' spouses and children, but activists contradict such claims. "Coke is putting its profits above the lives of people with AIDS by refusing to extend coverage to children," says Lynch. "The prospect of parents taking life-saving drugs while their children die is inexplicable and indefensible."

Alarmed by the gravity of the AIDS situation, the United Nations last month renewed its appeal for immediate food and relief supplies to save the lives of million in sub-Saharan Africa facing death from starvation and the spread of HIV/AIDS, urging donors to come up with US$611 million. According to UNICEF, today more than 28 million people in the sub-Saharan region — most of them youth — are living with HIV/AIDS. — IPS