Public transport commuters and HIV/AIDS

With almost half of the country's population using public transport, South African commuters have become a large mobile audience for interactive HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns.

According to a study conducted by the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE), the commonly held assumption that South Africans have not responded to HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns is incorrect. People have started to change their sexual behaviour, partly as a result of education campaigns run on the public transport system.

The study is part of the Commuter AIDS Information Project, which targets 3.5 million commuters in 20 urban area by providing basic HIV/AIDS information, referral information, condoms and leaflets in 20 high-density commuter sites across the country.

Interviews were conducted at nine urban sites to determine HIV/AIDS awareness, preventive behaviour and public orientation towards HIV/AIDS care and support.

Overall, commuters were extremely well informed and had a positive disposition towards the disease, seeing it as an important issue that needed to be addressed, the study noted.

Eighty percent of respondents had heard information about HIV/AIDS on the radio, while 70 percent accessed it through television. The penetration of leaflets, posters and red ribbon AIDS badges used in national government campaigns was also high.

Although a number of campaigns make use of newspapers as a means of distributing HIV/AIDS related material, only 16 percent of respondents indicated they had received leaflets or booklets in this way.

"We need to understand that the work on HIV prevention that has been undertaken so far has had some impact and we need to continue to develop new strategies in areas requiring specific focus," the research report said.

But there are still gaps in the information campaigns. Sixty-three percent of respondents indicated they had unanswered questions about the disease. There also appeared to be less clarity about whether a person infected with HIV could look healthy, the report added.

The government's widespread distribution of free condoms appears to have paid off, as levels of condom use were higher than expected, the study found.

Across all sites, 67 percent of respondents had previously used a condom, while almost half used a condom the last time they had sex. Over three-quarters of the commuters interviewed indicated they could easily obtain a condom if they needed one. There was also strong awareness and interest in the female condom.

"There is strong evidence of a positive orientation towards social mobilisation in response to the disease," the report said. There was an "encouraging degree of openness" towards people living with HIV/AIDS, as some 90 percent of respondents indicated they would be interested in talking about the disease with someone who was HIV positive.

"Taken together, these results suggest that HIV/AIDS interventions in South Africa have worked," the report concluded.