NEW DELHI, Jan. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- About 40 percent of India's truck drivers and their helpers are infected with AIDS, reveals a survey that calls for awareness among this community to check the spread of the fatal disease.
"The findings are certainly alarming. One in every three truckers visits commercial sex workers. The shocking part is that only 18 percent of them use condoms," Indo-Asian News Service quoted Alok Srivastava, chief project manager for the study, as saying.
According to the survey, conducted by the Center for Media Studies (CMS), though many truckers have heard about HIV and AIDS, only two percent of them know the difference between the two.
India is currently home to over 5.1 million AIDS patients. There are over 6 million truckers crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country.
The study collected data from hundreds of truck drivers ferrying on Indian national highways linking Mumbai and New Delhi, New Delhi-Kolkata, Kolkata-Chennai and Chennai-Mumbai.
Among the truckers surveyed, 95 percent were in the age group of 18 to 45 years old and 80 percent were married. Around 75 percent were in the profession for more than five years.
More than illiteracy, ignorance and being away from home for long stretches were the main reasons behind the spread of the disease among the truckers' community, Srivastava said. Enditem
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