Truck drivers who carry more than cargo

Outside a small blue-painted clinic, a group of truck drivers are queuing for treatment. They are all suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. Several may be HIV-positive, although the chances are that they have no idea they carry the disease.

The clinic is next to a cement factory on the outskirts of Delhi. Behind it is one of India's largest container depots, where a vast mobile population of truckers gather every afternoon before driving off into the night.

"A lot of truck drivers frequent prostitutes. We are away from home a lot," admitted one 21-year-old driver, Kilas, who was waiting to see the clinic's doctor.

"The going rate for sex is 50-100 rupees (70p-£1.40). I've been working as a truck driver for two years. I earn 10,000 rupees a month so visiting prostitutes is not expensive."

Was he worried about the HIV virus? "I know nothing about it. God saves me from all that," he added.

Unfortunately, Kilas's optimism is misplaced. Since the first case of HIV was diagnosed in India in 1986, the disease has spread dramatically. It has travelled from cities such as Bombay, Chennai (Madras) and Bangalore along India's trunk roads and into the countryside.

The spread of HIV in India is not difficult to explain. Most drivers are unwilling to use condoms - or do not know how to put one on. Levels of sexual ignorance remain huge. Aids campaigners in India estimate that out of the 4 million people who are HIV-positive, around half a million of them are truck drivers.

When the drivers do return home they often pass the virus on to their monogamous wives. And such are the levels of poverty in India that prostitutes invariably agree to have unprotected sex in return for a little extra money. It is a grim scenario.

"Awareness levels are increasing day by day," the clinic's doctor Dr Rajneesh Sikri said. "But most people know nothing. We have to tell them that unprotected sex is a bad idea."

Truck drivers are not solely to blame for the spread of HIV - migrant labourers and drug users, especially in north-eastern states close to Burma, have also contributed to the problem. Until behavioural patterns change, the problem is going to get worse. "The majority of truck drivers don't know how to use a condom," Dr Sikri said. "They complain that it puts them off."