Indian Truckers Spreading HIV Across Subcontinent

As history has taught us, mobility is often a double-edged sword. In India, quite a few indigenous truck stops, or "dhabas," offer free food to long-haul truckers, provided they pop for a quick stress-reliever with a prostitute, kinda like free drinks while one gambles in Vegas. Unfortunately, many, if not most of the drivers are uneducated about the dangers of HIV, and many of the (often very young) prostitutes at dhabas don't have the leverage to insist on condom use, if they've even been educated about its benefits at all.

All of this, as anyone with a couple of spare brain cells to rub together can imagine, is making the subcontinent a ripe target for infection, and in fact, it ranks only behind South Africa in the number of people living with HIV and AIDS, although given India's massive population, the per-capita infection rate is far lower.

Indian health officials are obviously worried, but proper truck-stop schwanz-wrapping procedures aren't being taught in trucking schools, and if drivers do become too sick to drive (given the lack of healthcare), they're simply replaced. With India's expanding economic growth, unless drastic measures in HIV-prevention education are taken, India could well become the next Africa.

HIV is spreading via India's highways [AP]

Related:
Pick Up a Ho, Lose Your Whip [Internal]