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45 Yogya bus drivers test positive for HIV/AIDS
Self awareness: A bus driver undergoes an HIV test during the celebration of World AIDS Day 2015 in Yogyakarta on Tuesday
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Self awareness: A bus driver undergoes an HIV test during the celebration of World AIDS Day 2015 in Yogyakarta on Tuesday. (thejakartapost.com/Bambang Muryanto) (thejakartapost.com/Bambang Muryanto)
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span class="inline inline-center">Self awareness: A bus driver undergoes an HIV test during the celebration of World AIDS Day 2015 in Yogyakarta on Tuesday. (thejakartapost.com/Bambang Muryanto)
The Yogyakarta Health Agency says that from 1993 to September 2015, 45 bus drivers tested positive for HIV/AIDS in the province.
Referring to the World Health Organization (WHO) standard, which says that one HIV-positive person represents 10 people, it is calculated that in reality, 450 people in the employment group have the deadly viral infection.
"People who work in the transportation sector are among those with a high risk of at least becoming part of the transmission chain of HIV," Yogyakarta AIDS Commission (KPA Yogyakarta) secretary Riswanto said on the sidelines of a seminar on HIV/AIDS control in Yogyakarta on Tuesday.
Dozens of bus drivers and civil servants attended the seminar, which was held by the Yogyakarta Transportation, Communication and Informatics Agency. The Transportation Ministry has been appointed as the leading sector in the commemoration of World AIDS Day 2015, which falls on Dec.1.
At the event, the Yogyakarta Health Agency offered free HIV tests and 13 men agreed to take the tests voluntarily.
"In tackling the spread of HIV/AIDS, we should recognize people belonging to the 3M group, or Men Mobile with Money," said Riswanto.
This group has been identified as men who work far from their wives, giving them an opportunity to have sex with people other than their partners. If those men, who frequently work as drivers, seamen or transportation workers, are infected with HIV, there is a chance that they will transmit the disease to their wives or partners.
"Drivers and transportation workers must begin to adopt a healthy lifestyle and avoid behavior with a high risk of getting HIV, such as changing sex partners without using condoms," said Riswanto.
He said if the drivers and transportation workers had been involved in risky behavior, they needed to immediately take an HIV test. The sooner they knew their HIV status, the better HIV treatment they would receive.
GeGe Transport tour bus driver Tri Wahyu said he decided to take the HIV test at the event because he wanted to know whether or not he tested positive for HIV.
"There was a time I repeatedly had sex with women who were not my wife," said Wahyu.
He explained that most drivers were engaged in behavior with a high risk of getting HIV, such as having sex with commercial sex workers. In doing so many of them used condoms while others chose not to do so.
"Those drivers claim that they have sex with commercial sex workers to heal their stress while some say that they want to try new techniques in having sex," said Wahyu.
The Yogyakarta administration's assistant secretary for governance and people's prosperity, Sulistyo, said it was hoped that HIV/AIDS in Yogyakarta and Indonesia could be controlled.
He said that medical treatment for an HIV/AIDS infected person was quite costly and this could disrupt the national economy.
"People who test positive for HIV/AIDS will usually have lower productivity," said Sulistyo.
The Yogyakarta Health Agency recorded that from 1993 to September 2015, 3,146 people tested positive for HIV. Of the total, 1,249 went on to develop AIDS.
Around 60 percent people with HIV/AIDS in Yogyakarta are in the productive ages of between 20 and 39 years old. (ebf)
