HIV-infected Female Sex Workers' High Risk Behavior and Attitude Changes in Kaiyuan City, Yunnan Province, China

To investigate the attitude and sexual behavior status and change among HIV positive female workers in entertainment sites in Kaiyuan city, Yunnan province, China. The key information should be applied in the integrated intervention program in future.

A cohort survey among HIV positive female workers was conducted during 12 months, between 2010 and 2012. All the risk sexual behavior and attitude were collected for assessment for the potential secondary transmission to sexual partners.

Of 99 HIV positive women who sell sex in Kaiyuan city, 99 participated in the survey at baseline, 80, 80, 75, and 75 at 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month follow-ups. The percentage of participants who reported consistently used condoms in the last one month ranged between 94.5% and 95.5%. The client volume in the last one month, income per sex and age group were significant related with non-insistent condom use with their clients.

It was suggested that integrated intervention program package should include 100 percent condom use promotion for the HIV positive FSW with all sexual partners, and also, include socially support involved...

Recent epidemic reports from China suggest that new HIV transmission is increasingly driven by sexual transmission, which show that 46.5% of all people living with HIV are thought to have contracted HIV. This national trend of this reflected in southern Yunnan province, where the early years of the HIV epidemic was dominated by injection drug use due to its proximity to the heroin producing Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. In contrast to 1989 when all reported cases were attributed to injection drug use, by 2007, 47.4% were attributed by unprotected sex. Though estimates of HIV prevalence among Yunnan FSWs remain relatively low at 2.0%, alarmingly, high rates have been reported among sub-groups across the province including street-based FSWs (18.2%) and drug-using FSWs (36.7%). Female sex workers therefore remain a priority target for prevention activities in Yunnan in light of their own vulnerability to infection and their potential role in HIV transmission to the ‘general population’ through sex with their male clients.

Kaiyuan city is located in Honghe, a largely rural prefecture located in central Yunnan province. Its proximity to a major trade and transit corridor between China and Southeast Asia has brought about rapid economic development to the area since the 1990’s, but along with it a vibrant heroin trafficking trade appeared as well. The result caused heroin use popular as well as the blossoming of a local commercial sex industry, both of which have had profound impacts on HIV/AIDS transmission. It is estimated that more than 1 000 FSWs are working in the downtown area of Kaiyuan, which has a population of roughly 300 000. Due to the prevalence of drug use and commercial sex related behaviors, the ‘twin epidemics’ in Kaiyuan led to it becoming one of the most severely impact cities in the country...

  

Full article at: http://goo.gl/bZX0HL

By: Ding GW1, Hsi JH1, Liu HX1, Su YY1, Wang JJ1, Bai J2, Wang GX2, Wang HB3, Dong RL4, Wang N1.

• 1National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China.
• 2Kaiyuan City Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiyuan 661600, Yunnan, China.
• 3Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China.
• 4Shenzhen International Travel Healthcare Center, Shenzhen 518033, Guangdong, China.  

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