Community Health
During the year we progressed our support of the Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop new anti-malarial medication. Malaria is a significant health issue for us in southern Mozambique and northern Brazil where our operations are located, and many other areas where we have development activities. The Medicines for Malaria Venture, established through the World Health Organisation, aims to provide affordable anti-malarial drugs to people in disease-endemic countries. We have continued our strong support for the malaria eradication program in Southern Africa by collaborating in an extensive spraying program.
In addition, the study in EKATI to limit the spread of TB is in the final stages of approval prior to full implementation. In the Northwest Territories of Canada, TB is a significant issue among the Inuit population, which as a consequence has an impact on our EKATI Diamond Mine operation. Our TB program is a screening program aimed at detecting latent TB infection, thereby enabling a course of treatment to reduce the chances of active TB developing and infection of others occurring . For more details refer to our 2004 case study, EKATI screening program.
We have also progressed a project during the year supporting the development of a new treatment for HIV/AIDS that may be applicable to the African subcontinent. The Company has provided significant funding to develop a clinical trial on this treatment, which is given as an injectable therapeutic vaccine. We are assisting to recruit other organisations to provide further funding and develop the early stages of the clinical trial program.
If this treatment proves successful, it will potentially provide an approach to the epidemic that can be delivered to a wider number of the affected population and not have the significant compliance issues and costs associated with antiretroviral medication. This is further detailed in our case study, Supporting the development of advancements in HIV/AIDS treatments. In addition, refer to the summary of good work being done at our aluminium smelter in Mozambique with their awareness and education campaign.
In addition, a number of other community health initiatives were progressed through the reporting period at our sites. For an example of policy in action, refer to our case study, A long-running health program at Cerréjon.
