More and more people belonging to the labour force are becoming victims of aids in Zambia and other young African nations. This was disclosed recently by the Zambian minister David Saviye at the International Conference on aids and std in Africa. He said hiv and aids was also stifling economic growth and development and there is no single sector that has been spared by the scourge of this pandemic. "The scourge has an unprecedented impact on mortality of workers in industry,' Saviye said.

The minister said response to the pandemic should be multi-sectoral in nature. It must embrace all public, private, religious and non-governmental sectors in order to achieve maximum impact. Health minister Nkandu Luo said several methods would be used to reach as many people as possible so that they are made aware about the hiv/aids pandemic.