Isn't this disingenuous?

Thousands of Red Cross workers hit by Aids

HIV/Aids is threatening the international Red Cross, with thousands of aid workers hit by the disease, the organisation has revealed.

Launching a new fund to help staff and volunteers get vital drugs, Red Cross official Bernard Gardiner said that fighting it was a question of "organisational survival."

Gardiner heads the Aids campaign at the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The federation estimates that around 200,000 of its 97 million employees and voluntary aid workers worldwide are suffering from HIV/Aids, most of them in Africa, where the disease has struck hardest. Many provide essential care for other sufferers.

"We can't do our work without keeping these people alive," Gardiner said.

Africa is home to 29 million of the world's 40 million people living with HIV - the virus that causes Aids - or the full-blown disease.

"We get our members of staff from the community," said Tito Fachi, president of the Zambian Red Cross. Like ordinary Africans, few local Red Cross can afford the life-prolonging anti-retroviral medicines available in wealthier countries.

The Red Cross Masambo Fund - named after a Zimbabwean aid worker who died of Aids in 2001 - aims to gather enough money initially to start helping 300 people next year. It expects to provide five years' treatment for sick Red Cross workers.

© Associated Press

Story filed: 13:05 Thursday 27th November 2003

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Not belittling the problem, but to say that your workers have "been hit" with a disease implies they've contracted it while working, when in fact they brought it with them.

It's like saying your workers have "been hit" with leprosy, when you're hiring help from the leper colony...


Edited to add link :
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_842056.html?menu=news.latestheadlines

200,000 cases of HIV/AIDS out of 97,000,000 staff and volunteers.

That's only .2%!  2 out of every 1,000 people.

With so many staff members coming from 3rd world countries,  I would think they are doing pretty good.

What's the per capita rate for HIV in the U.S.?

Around that depending on who's numbers you crunch. I get a little higher prevalence using the GarCIA's 2001 numbers, 3/1,000, for the US.

The US is 60th in the top 100.

A couple of the African nations have rates into the high 3 digits. 182 or 188/1,000.