OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday
PROSTITUTES who questioned long distance truck drivers in South Africa and took spit samples found that a third of those surveyed always stopped for sex during journeys, and more than half tested HIV-positive, according to a study made public this week.
The country’s Medical Research Council said the questions showed that 56% of drivers surveyed in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province were HIV-positive, that 34% of them reported always stopping for sex during journeys, and that 29% never used condoms with prostitutes.
At one truck-stop, 95% of truckers were HIV-positive.
All the 320 drivers surveyed travelled to three or more provinces in South Africa, and most to neighbouring countries.
Seventy percent had wives or girlfriends, and few had ever used condoms with these regular partners.
The council called for the urgent establishment of mobile clinics along trucking routes, cooperation between the government and the trucking industry on awareness, and condom distribution.
For the survey, the first substantial study on HIV and truckers in southern Africa, council researchers recruited 10 prostitutes at five truck stops to gather data from their clients.
The women were trained to obtain the truckers’ informed consent to participation in the study, to fill in questionnaires, and to obtain a spit sample for HIV testing.
“The study highlights the urgent need to deal with the HIV epidemic across political boundaries in the southern African region,” the council said.
The women were very enthusiastic about the project, said one of the researchers, Gita Ramjee.
“For them it was something that was empowering, the ability to become a researcher,” she told the Sapa news agency.
She said the council decided to use the women in part because it was unsure how accessible the drivers would be to “outside” researchers. The prostitutes’ HIV status had already been established.
Only 60 of the truckers approached by the field workers had refused to take part in the survey.
“Surprisingly, a lot of men were agreeable. They wanted to be tested,” Ramjee said.
Ramjee said the study was carried out in 1999 and 2000, and that one of the women was still employed by the council as a field worker.
“She continues doing whatever she’s doing,” said Ramjee. “We don’t change her profession. She’s one of our very good field workers.” – AFP
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