Brewer offers HIV training to farmers

HIV and Aids testing is being provided to Ugandan supplier farmers by one of the world’s largest brewers.

SABMiller, which makes Peroni, Grolsch and Eagle beers, has provided voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) to about 4000 farmers and 250 truck drivers in its supply chain.  

The company initially trained 200 Ugandan farmers making sorghum for Eagle beer as ‘peer educators’ and provided bicycles to give them access to fellow farmers. Of the 4000 farmers that SABMiller claims now know about the availability of testing, 1400 have gone for VCT. Last year the company also distributed 10,000 condoms to its Ugandan suppliers and to bartenders selling its beer.

The offer comes after SABMiller managed to register 94 per cent of its HIV-positive employees and 64 per cent of spouses for healthcare programmes at its clinic just outside the brewery. Additionally, about 400 people in the surrounding community receive treatment at the clinic.

The company told EP: ‘It’s about being a responsible corporate citizen, but the overall health of our value chain is particularly important to us.

‘We have also seen the benefits of timely treatment for those people who test positive. We focus on specific at-risk or vulnerable groups, such as small scale farmers, truck drivers and bar workers.’

Uganda has been one of the few sub-Saharan African countries to lower its HIV infection rate in recent years, though one million are still thought to have the virus.

SABMiller has other HIV projects in Kenya, Malawi and South Africa.