Chirundu is a very good example of how HIV is spreading rapidly throughout the country and how the Society for Family Health (SFH), PSI's affiliate in Zambia, is working to stop it.

Though drivers hate being stigmatized as being major carriers of this deadly cargo, it soon becomes clear that they are bored and that this boredom helps facilitate the spread of the deadly virus. Four days on average is the waiting period before customs has checked and cleared their vehicles. With two pool tables and extremely loud music, the motel provides the only legal distraction.

Walk down the street after sunset and it is difficult not to notice the "click-click" of numerous pairs of stilettos on the tarmac, each pair occupied by a shrewd businesswoman. Drawn by hunger (personal or family), poverty or no other source of income, girls (some still at school) arrive from villages many kilometers away to offer themselves to the drivers and their per diems. Street kids run between trucks like table waiters, brokering deals between prostitute and trucker. Taking orders, then delivering the specified request.

Chirundu, together with Livingstone on the border of Zimbabwe in the south and Nakonde on the border of Tanzania in the north, were chosen to be funded as part of a Southern African Regional Initiative that covers seven countries.

Corridors of Hope, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), offers peer education, condom availability and promotion, sexually-transmitted infection treatment, peer education and a central and safe place where commercial sex workers (CSWs) and drivers can go and become informed without prejudice.

Based in South Africa, the Corridors of Hope project wanted to address the problem of HIV transmission along high density routes taken by truckers. Chirundu was used as a test case in Zambia. SFH partners with World Vision and Family Health International (FHI) to implement the project on a day-to-day basis. In Chirundu, the collaboration of USAID, JICA, SFH, World Vision and FHI enabled the creation of the well frequented "Blue House" which forms a vital base for centralizing the operation. Initially budgeted at $69,000 a year, this regional funding has been increased to $200,000 a year, plus the provision of transport when Nakonde and Livingstone joined the project.

— Mpundu Mwanza, Media and Public Affairs Specialist, Society of Family Health

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In Zambian border towns, entertainment such as radios is hard to find. Instead, truck drivers that are forced to wait for days to clear customs turn to commericial sex workers, adding to the rising prevalence of HIV in the area.