Ethiopia's workplace HIV/AIDS policy aims to help employers, employees nationwide

Ethiopia's new HIV/AIDS workplace policy, instituted in January by the government in cooperation with the country's main employees' and employers' associations, "is expected to protect job seekers from mandatory HIV tests, while facilitating voluntary counseling and testing and defending the right of employees living with HIV to medical leave or job re-allocation," PlusNews reports. The policy "provides guidelines for the establishment of an AIDS fund to help employees cope with living with the virus" and "stipulates that employers will make the necessary investments to ensure universal precautions in workplaces to protect employees from HIV infection, and ... put in place a post-exposure prophylaxis system for their workforce," the news service writes. Tadele Yimer, president of the Ethiopian Employers Federation, said, "What we hope [the new policy] will do is bring about an agreed consent and uniform approach among employers to fight HIV/AIDS nationally," according to PlusNews (3/26).