The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday said it would step up intervention programs in its road projects to buck the growing trend of HIV infection among long-distance drivers.

Asia's rapid rollout of infrastructure in recent years has helped cut poverty and provided many new jobs but an increase in mobility also presents serious challenges for the spread of communicable diseases, the multilateral development bank said in a press release.

The majority of ADB loans and assistance goes to the transport sector.

"The confluence of 'mobile men' with money away from family and social connections and with interaction with local communities and other mobile populations that often follow construction camps, all make for a heightened HIV-vulnerable setting," ADB Vice-President Ursula Schaefer-Preuss was quoted as saying.

She said the ADB is expanding its existing HIV action plans for infrastructure projects beyond the construction phase, to include the preparation and post-construction stages and the bank is participating in the concerted efforts to collect, interpret data on HIV/AIDS prevention in local levels.

"Often, national and regional responses to HIV/AIDS have been undermined by generic approaches, which do not address the major local drivers of the epidemic in each setting. Therefore, the need for accurate and good quality data, as well as the capacity to interpret those data, remains to be important," she added.

By the end of last year, the ADB has committed a total of about US$112 million for HIV/AIDS activities.

(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2009)