USAID/Guinea: Mining Company To Continue HIV/AIDS Testing, Counseling and Treatment

AUGUST 8, 2007

Mining Company To Continue HIV/AIDS Testing, Counseling and Treatment

Guinea mining company pledges to maintain the availability of voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services to workers and residents in two mining towns in Lower Guinea.

KAMSAR - The company in charge of the world's largest bauxite mine will fund and keep open two HIV/AIDS counseling and screening centers established through grants from USAID, company officials said recently.

Hospitals in Sangaredi and Kamsar will continue to provide free HIV/AIDS voluntary and counseling services to mine workers and their families, as well as town residents, according to representatives of CBG (Companie Bauxite de Guinee), which is jointly owned by Alcoa and the government of Guinea.

A billboard in Kamsar encourages miners to prevent AIDS with condoms.

Guinea is estimated to have at least one-third of the world's proven reserves of bauxite, which is refined to produce aluminum. The CBG facilities in Sangaredi and Kamsar mine and export about 13 million tons of bauxite annually.

A 2001 survey determined that HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the Guinean population is estimated at 1.5 percent and the prevalence rate among Guinean miners, a high-risk group was at 4.7 percent.

As a result of this survey, a Global Development Alliance was initiated by USAID to implement HIV/AIDS prevention activities in the mining sector in order to minimize the spread of the disease.

USAID/Guinea's grant of $80,000 covered the cost of integrating voluntary and counseling testing services into the two hospitals of Kamsar and Sangaredi as well as covering the portion of two HIV/AIDS studies for the project. Funding from the National AIDS Committee ($50,000) and the Guinea Chamber of Mines ($50,000) supported the introduction of the prevention of mother to child transmission and HIV/AIDS communication activities and sensitization.

Bauxite is blasted at the mine and trucked to the train in Sangaredi, then delivered to the processing facility at Kamsar, where it is crushed, dried and loaded onto ships for export.

Bauxite extracted at the mine near Sangaredi is shipped by train to the processing facility at Kamsar, where it is crushed, dried and loaded onto ships for export.

At the company-run health center in Sangaredi, which has 23 beds, 211 people - 100 men and 111 women - received HIV/AIDS voluntary and counseling testing in the 11 months between June 2006 and May 2007. Of the 211 tested, 15 women and nine men tested positive for HIV - a prevalence rate of 11.4 percent.

In Kamsar, where there are about 2,500 workers at the processing facility, 235 people were tested: 98 women and 137 men. About 20 tested HIV-positive in the 11-month period ending in May.

Both sites have dedicated waiting rooms, counseling rooms, testing rooms and are equipped with audio visual materials, furniture (tables, chairs, desks), and lab materials, including anti retroviral drugs to treat post exposure to HIV/AIDS. Four lab technicians and thirty counselors were trained to perform pre- and post counseling and on-site rapid testing. The hospital staffs, including janitors, also were trained in infection prevention and stigmatization.

Workers at the mine are eligible for annual examinations and free treatment and as a result of this USAID-support activity, the company will provide free anti retroviral (ARV) drugs for eligible HIV positive people. Previously, patients referred for HIV/AIDS treatment were required to travel to Conakry to obtain ARV drugs.

Story and photos by Richard Stirba