Representatives of the Russian Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, the Russian Ministry of Health, the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-Being (Rospotrebnadzor), the Federal Labour and Employment Service (Rostrud), the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (FITUR), the Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR), and a number of major companies, such as Russian Railways, Gazprom Oil, Shell Exploration and Production Company in Russia, SUEK, RUSAL, Irkutsk Oil Company, and AIDS Centres completed a three-day course on providing workplace-based HIV/AIDS awareness and education programmes.

The seminar was addressed by Grigoriy Lekarev, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Protection, and David Krishtal, Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia. Both emphasised the importance of the HIV and AIDS response and expressed their hope that the country's major employers represented at the seminar would launch HIV and AIDS awareness campaigns for their employees.

Lilia Tsai, Chief Specialist of the Department of Occupational Medicine at the Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK), drew the attention of the Ministry of Labour and FITUR representatives to a lack of educational materials for employees aged 30 to 60 – the age group recently accounting for the greatest number of new HIV infections.

SUEK was the first large Russian company to request the ILO's assistance in organising HIV prevention at its enterprises and to join the ILO's global initiative for voluntary, confidential HIV counselling and testing for workers (VCT@WORK). SUEK's experience reveals that availability of rapid HIV testing is essential for effective VCT@WORK. Rapid HIV tests can provide results within 10-15 minutes, but there is often a shortage of this type of testing kits at AIDS Centres. In addition to this, VCT at remote production facilities without onsite medical service requires mobile labs, which are often lacking at AIDS Centres, and more HIV counsellors.

Other issues raised at the seminar included the need for the tripartite partners at all levels to provide targeted HIV and AIDS education and awareness, and proposals to develop a methodology for providing pre-test counselling, perhaps in the form of group counselling, in the workplace and to maintain a database of good practices of HIV and AIDS awareness programmes delivered by companies and enterprises.

The seminar participants emphasised the leading role of the Russian Ministry of Labour and Social Protection in coordinating the HIV and AIDS workplace response by involving the social partners, representatives of the Ministry of Health and Rospotrebnadzor, HIV/AIDS experts and other actors in the development and implementation of comprehensive awareness programmes likely to effect positive changes in risky behaviours and in attitudes towards people living with HIV.