KENYA: New centre brings HIV services to truckers
JOHANNESBURG: "Every trucker should know how to change a tyre and put on a condom," said Anisa Abdalla, a doctor in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, at the opening of a new "roadside wellness centre" offering HIV services to truck drivers and other transport workers.
Truck drivers at a truck station outside Port Sudan. © Kristy Siegfried/PlusNews
The centre, opened on Thursday, 26 March 2009 by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in conjunction with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, UNAIDS and the Kenya Ports Authority, aims to curb the spread of HIV among truckers travelling the “northern corridor”, which stretches from Mombasa to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Free condoms, voluntary counselling and HIV testing, and screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections will be provided at the centre, strategically located at the entrance to the main port in Mombasa. It will operate between 3pm and 10pm, when most drivers arrive to park their vehicles overnight.
