The estimated 5 million to 8 million truck drivers who deliver supplies along long-haul routes, men who are far from home and always on the move, have become one of India's populations most at-risk for AIDS.

Of the 20-25 truckers tested each month at the Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital near New Delhi's Sanjay Gandhi truck depot, around one-fourth are HIV-positive. "They tell us they have many sex partners at red-light areas and then they have sex with their wives," said Nirmal Khatri, a hospital counselor. "It is a problem; it is a big problem."

For years, outreach workers have visited the depots and local truck stops, called dhabas, that line India's highways. While safe-sex messages are ubiquitous, they are not always loud enough. S. Sundararaman, an AIDS consultant, said Indian truckers may have anywhere from 40 to 400 sex partners a year, depending on how much time and money they have.

Truckers are tempted everywhere by sex. Some dhabas use it to increase revenue. "What we have found in some cases, the food was free [at the dhabas], provided they have sex," said Denis Broun, UNAIDS country coordinator in India.

The trucking industry, government, unions and drivers themselves must address the problem before it becomes unmanageable, said Sundararaman. "The truckers actually have a very, very important and crucial role to play in containment," said Sundararaman, who has spent the last 15 years working with truckers. "We have characterized them as a bridge population because they are bridging the population across geography."

"In Africa, it was exactly the same because wherever the roads did not take people, the epidemic did not reach there," Sundararaman noted.

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