Asian Development Bank to Fight HIV Spread in Road Projects

In a statement Monday acknowledging the role that infrastructure improvements can play in spreading HIV, the Asian Development Bank announced plans to boost interventions to counter the spread of the virus among long-distance truckers. ADB will expand its existing HIV action plans for projects to include pre- and post-construction periods as well as the actual construction stage. It will also participate in efforts to collect and interpret local-level data on HIV/AIDS prevention. "The confluence of 'mobile men' with money away from family and social connections with interaction with local communities and other mobile populations that often follow constructions all make for a heightened HIV-vulnerable setting," said Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, an ADB vice president. "Often, national and regional responses to HIV/AIDS have been undermined by generic approaches, which do not address the major local drivers of the epidemic in each setting. Therefore, the need for accurate and good quality data, as well as the capacity to interpret those data, remains to be important," she said. ADB had committed $112 million to AIDS-related initiatives as of the end of 2008.

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