Inter Press Service - April 26, 2002
James Hall

Migrant workers and itinerant individuals, that constantly travel, are considered likely carriers, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report.

The study found truck drivers, especially those on routes that carry them across national borders, are one high-risk group that shows a profile of behaviour and even occupation can predict HIV carriers.

"Sexually-transmitted diseases have always been associated with migrant workers," says Dr. Samuel Hynd, a former Swaziland health minister. "For a century, that meant mine workers in South Africa who come from every nation in Southern Africa. These men are away from their homes for eleven months of the year. They have sex with professional women who hang around workers hostels. These liaisons lead to infections."

Workers under contract with mining companies who live most of the year in single-sex compounds without their families remain prone to sexually-transmitted diseases, though medical confidentiality agreements that workers unions have got from companies prevents the public dissemination of exact figures. (Health authorities say they are privy to reliable statistics on which to formulate disease prevention programmes.)

Migrant workers are receiving attention from anti-AIDS groups, which distribute condoms and literature at hostels, and conduct group meetings.

The South African journal 'Business Day' reports that AIDS has struck hard the country's mining workforce, and all mining companies have AIDS teams at company clinics to promote blood testing, as well as safe sexual conduct, which is the best defence against HIV.

Miners are a relatively easy group to monitor for AIDS, because they are clustered in compounds at usually isolated mining facilities. Truckers, particularly long-haul drivers, pose a greater challenge because they are so mobile.

"Truckers are the sailors of today, with a girl in every port," says Wendy Nxumalo, an AIDS counsellor in Nelspruit, South Africa. "They sleep in their trucks, and every starving girl knows she can get a meal in exchange for sex with a trucker. Every time I see one of these big rig trucks, I hand the driver a packet of condoms."

Swaziland's ministry of health has been criticised in the Swazi media and by AIDS groups for failing to effectively combat the spread of HIV that currently infects one third of the population, according to the most comprehensive health survey taken of the kingdom, by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). (The health ministry, which has conducted no comparable survey, insists "only" 22.5 percent of the population is HIV positive.)

It is, therefore, not surprising that another ministry, the transportation ministry, has tackled the issue of truckers with AIDS.

"We at the ministry felt we have to safeguard the transportation industry," says a ministerial source in Mbabane. "Swaziland is a landlocked country, and all of our fuel and just about all of our consumer goods and other needs have to be brought in by road or rail."

"A shortage of truck drivers - and not just anybody can get behind the wheel of a big rig long-haul truck, it takes training and experience - this will hurt the economy. There will be shortages in shops, and factories couldn't get spare parts and raw materials for manufacturing," he adds.

The transport ministry felt it would have to safeguard the nation's truck drivers after the UNDP report found they were highly susceptible to HIV infections. South Africa and Mozambique, which are covered by the truckers' routes, are also affected by the truckers' health status, and would benefit from prevention programmes benefiting them.

A permanent AIDS information centre aimed at truck drivers will likely be built at the Matsapha Industrial Estate, 25 kilometres east of Mbabane, where Swaziland's industry is centred and South African and Swazi freight haulage and courier service companies are headquartered.

AIDS information also will be distributed to truckers at the Oshoek border gate, which is most heavily utilised by traffic entering Swaziland from Gauteng, South Africa's province that contains the Johannesburg to Pretoria industrial corridor.

The Federation of Swaziland Employers and government's Swaziland National AIDS Project have endorsed the programme.

The UNDP report does not specify how many truckers are thought to be HIV positive, or the percentage of new HIV infections in Swaziland, South Africa or Mozambique attributable to truckers. Its conclusions appear to have been drawn from anecdotal evidence.

But a sampling of opinion from managers of Swaziland's freight haulage companies and some long haul truckers finds agreement with the study.

"We have an increasing turnover of drivers, and young men who are perfectly healthy and with no history of sickness become ill and leave us," says a manager for a freight haulage company at Matsapha. "We know AIDS is behind it, but it is custom among Swazis not to openly talk about AIDS."

The manager feels private counselling and confidential testing aimed at truck drivers is a good idea, for the drivers as well as their partners.

"We have to also think about our drivers' sex partners, who are also at risk," he says.

Musa, a driver for an overnight courier service, admits, "I have girlfriends all over my routes. I hate condoms, but I am told that I must start using them or get infected with HIV."

"AIDS cannot be blamed on truckers," says Lindiwe Dlamini, a counsellor with the AIDS Support Centre in Manzini, the commercial capital of Swaziland. "But now that they have been identified as a high risk group, we will give them special attention."

HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. And, the estimated 3.4 million new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa in 2001 mean that 28.1 million Africans now live with the virus. UNAIDS estimates that 2.3 million Africans died of the disease in 2001.
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