BANGKOK (AFP) – The UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned yesterday that as many as 48 million workers may be killed by AIDS by 2010, and that the toll could rise to 74 million by 2015, inflicting a body blow to national economies.

The ILO published the analysis, which is based on access to life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs, on the opening day of the 15th International AIDS Conference, the top forum on the 23 year-old epidemic of the disease.

“HIV/AIDS is not only a human crisis, it is a threat to sustainable global, social and economic development,” ILO director-general Juan Somavia said.

“The loss of life and the debilitating effects of the illness will lead not only to a reduced capacity to sustain production and employment, reduce poverty and promote development, but will be a burden borne by all societies, rich and poor alike.”

The analysis, ‘HIV/AIDS and Work, Global Estimates, Impact and Response’, covers 50 countries.

Forty of them had an estimated prevalence of the human immunodeficiency virus of more than two per cent in 2001; five were between 1.5 and 2.0 per cent; and five were countries with an HIV-infected population of a million or more.

Thirty-five were from sub-Saharan Africa; eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, five were from Asia, and two were from developed countries.

As of today, about 36.5 million people of working age – defined as between 15 and 49 years – have the AIDS virus, the report said.

By 2005, the death toll of workers from AIDS since the disease was first uncovered in 1981 will be as many as 28 million, the ILO said.

Two million people of working age will be unable to work by next year, compared with half-a-million in 1995.

By 2010, that historic death toll may be 48 million, and it could hit 74 million if efforts fail to speed distribution of antiretrovirals. Four million people of working age will be too sick to work by the end of the decade.

That will place an increased economic burden on the other members of the workforce.

Africa, home to two-thirds of the people with HIV or AIDS, will bear the brunt of the loss in production and human capital – but Asia will start to close the gap.

Today, almost five million people of working age in Asia have HIV, the ILO said, referring specifically to Cambodia, China, India, Myanmar and Thailand, the five Asian countries included in the study.

By 2010, in the absence of increased access to treatment, almost 10 million Asian workers will have died since 1981, and by 2015, the total figure will top 18 million.

“By causing the illness and death of workers, the HIV/AIDS epidemic reduces the stock of skills and experience of the labour force,” said Franklyn Lisk, director of the ILO’s AIDS programmes.

“This loss in human capital is a direct threat to the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development.”

The figures contrast with the death toll issued last Tuesday by the UN agency UNAIDS, which in a report that revised downwards its previous estimate of 2002 said “over 20 million” people of all ages had died of AIDS.

The ILO report said AIDS was already being felt in macroeconomic terms.

In countries where the impact was measurable, AIDS deaths among the workforce clipped 0.2 per cent off the annual rate of growth of gross domestic product between 1992-2002.

This was equivalent to $25 billion per year.