More long distance truck drivers use condoms

A report by the Institut d’Analyse et de Communication des Ensemble Sociax (INACESS) based in Benin shows that 91.01% of truck drivers, their apprentices and sex workers plying their trade at five ports in West Africa are familiar with at least two means of HIV prevention.

In the area of HIV testing, the report shows that although more than three quarters of truckers interviewed know where to go for anonymous AIDS test, only 30.7% of the of them were bold enough to go back for their test results.

The report, which was sponsored by the World Bank and presented to the Ghana AIDS Commission, was carried out in the port cities of Tema in Ghana, Apapa in Nigeria, Cotonou in Benin, Lome in Togo and Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire.

It was carried out to measure the level of achievement of indicators of HIV component among truckers, their apprentices, brothel based and non-brothel based sex workers visiting the ports.

According to the report which was carried out between 2012 and 2013, behavioural data was collected from 1,637 truckers and related transport workers and 1,162 sex workers for the research.

Addressing health officials on the report on Thursday, Dr Dougnon Victorien, Lead Consultant, INACESS, said in addition to their wives 25.1% of truckers interviewed had sexual intercourse with commercial sex workers other than their wives.

He said condoms were used in 74.5% of cases with commercial partners and in 68.9% of cases with non –commercial casual partners.

On sex workers, all most of them have knowledge on HIV prevention with 90 to 99% depending on the different methods used.

He said 63.2% of sexual workers cited at least two signs of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in women and 44.3% in men.

Mr Cosmos Ohene-Adjei, acting Director Technical Services, Ghana AIDS Commission, appealed to the researchers to do more research on individual countries and not bundle all the five countries together.