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“Awareness of HIV among truck drivers has increased”

PUDUCHERRY: The usage of condom among truck drivers has increased by 50 per cent in the last two years, Gilbert Fernandes, Project Director, Pondicherry AIDS Control Society (PACS), said on Tuesday.

Addressing truck drivers, truck owners, cleaners and people working in petrol bunks at a workshop on HIV/AIDS, Dr. Gilbert said that according to Behavioural Surveillance Survey of 2006, condom usage has increased from 30 per cent to 60 per cent.

This shows that there is an increase in awareness among truck, he said.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) had revised the intervention strategy and it would cover only core groups, including commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users, migrant labourers and street children. “Truck drivers are not covered under this system of being provided information about HIV/AIDS by NGOs any more. Instead, they have been asked to pass on information through the community itself. By January, we want them to have a community-based programme in place,” he added.

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