Truck Drivers and Casual Sex Truck Drivers and Casual Sex: An Inquiry into the Potential Spread of HIV/AIDS in the Baltic Region

Truck Drivers and Casual Sex is part of the World Bank Working Paper series. These papers are published to communicate the results of the Bank’s ongoing research and to stimulate public discussion.

While the threat of an HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be taken lightly in any country of the Europe and Central Asia region, four countries—Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—stand out as being particularly vulnerable. First, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is relatively high and is rapidly increasing in locations neighboring these countries to the east, like Ukraine, Kaliningrad, Belarus, and Moldova, where public health conditions are also rapidly deteriorating.

Second, because of their geographical location, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania stand at the crossroads of the main east-west and north-south transport corridors, and represent the link between countries of the former Soviet Union and western Europe.The open borders and rapid transit threatens to broaden the sweep of the HIV epidemic, from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as drug injectors and sex workers come into contact with other population groups in these countries.

(abstract authors' own)