EMPLOYEE BENEFITS: Global medical technology company Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) has 25,000 employees worldwide, with 11,600 in the United States.

AREA OF OPERATION: With its global headquarters in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, BD operates in more than 50 countries, including Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Zimbabwe,Tanzania, India, and China.

STATE OF EMERGENCY: All the countries in which BD works have significant HIV/AIDS concerns. China and India, however, have recently received a great deal of attention, with the disease holding the potential to devastate both emerging economies. UNAIDS believes that China has 1.5 million cases but U.S. intelligence sources place this number closer to 2 million and predict between 10 and 15 million infections by 2010. India is similarly worrisome: U.S. intelligence sources predict the country will sustain 20 - 25 million HIV infections by 2010.

IN GOOD COMPANY: Since its founding in 1897, BD has been on the front lines of key health issues around the globe, focusing on medical devices, infectious disease diagnostic systems, and lifescience research. BD was the first U.S. manufacturing facility to produce syringes and needles (1906); in 1942, it was credited with developing a unique injection device used during World War II for the first injections of penicillin. In 1988, it placed the first auto-disable syringes for childhood immunizations into WHO field trials to address the spread of HIV and other diseases through reuse of injection devices.

FIRST IN THE FIGHT: Following participation in a 2003 GBC-led trip to four sub-Saharan African nations, BD experienced a "revelation" about its role in the fight against HIV/AIDS.Though it had long used its flow cytometers in laboratories to monitor the immune systems of HIV patients and HIV vaccine research, the company realized it could do even more. After the GBC trip, the company was inspired to create its "Technologies Relevant to HIV/AIDS" framework for mapping capabilities across the various therapies required for prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of HIV.

ALL OVER THE WORLD: BD has recruited some of the top HIV/AIDS experts and medical professionals from WHO, Médecins Sans Frontières, and UNICEF in Africa and Asia to help lead training, engage with policy officials, and conduct other implementation efforts. The company also works to help establish economically sustainable healthcare infrastructures. In Zambia, for example, it is collaborating with the Ministry of Health and the Centers for Disease Control to provide good laboratory practice training to officials who diagnose and monitor HIV and tuberculosis. Interested in preventing the iatogenic transmission of disease, BD worked with the Indian government and the public-private partnership Hindustan Latex Ltd. to prevent the dangerous reuse of syringes, the second leading cause of HIV spread in India.

MEDICAL BENEFITS: Acutely aware that access to diagnostic technologies is crucial to curtailing HIV/AIDS, BD has a number of philanthropic agreements. Working with the Clinton Foundation, BD promises to provide CD4 cell-counting technology at significantly reduced prices for developing countries. Similarly, it has made agreements with the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics to improve diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in developing countries.