The Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum and the Lilly MDR-TB Partnership launched a new toolkit to boost the involvement of South African companies in tackling the tuberculosis (TB) crisis in Cape Town on Tuesday.

In cooperation with national and international partners including private sector, the toolkit provides guidelines to help South African companies rapidly increase their TB control programs by adopting a joint approach to tackling TB and HIV.

On a practical level, the toolkit will help companies increase opportunities and activities in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB/HIV co-infections in the workplace.

"Businesses have a fundamental responsibility towards both their employees and the wider community, and for preservation of their long-term interests by ensuring the national development of human capital to drive economic growth," said Alex Azar, Eli Lilly and Company's senior vice-president for corporate affairs and communications.

"Tuberculosis has the capacity to undermine all of this."

"The sooner South African businesses start awakening to the extent of the problem, the sooner they can understand the associated risks in the workforce and to their business," said Shaloo Puri, head of the India Business Alliance, and India and Tuberculosis advisor at the Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum.

Representing only 0.7 percent of the world's population, South Africa has 28 percent of the global number of HIV-positive TB cases. Seventy percent of TB patients in South Africa are infected with HIV.

(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2008)