How much do blood exposures contribute to HIV prevalence in female sex workers in sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand and India?

Abstract

Female sex workers (FSWs) are subject to frequent invasive procedures in health care and cosmetic services. When infection control is deficient, these procedures not only put FSWs at risk to acquire HIV, but are also risks for FSWs to transmit HIV to the general population. Direct information about blood exposures other than injection drug use as risks for HIV infection in FSWs has been too limited to test the hypothesis that unsterile health-care procedures have infected large numbers of FSWs in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. However, indirect evidence suggests that blood exposures might account for an important proportion of their HIV infections. This indirect evidence includes: higher prevalence of hepatitis C infection among sex workers than among other women; continuing HIV acquisition among FSWs despite high rates of condom use and surprisingly high ratios of incidence of HIV compared with incidence of syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia.