Community radios help protect Mozambicans against polio - WHO
MSF / AFP / Gianni Luigi Guercia
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are concerned about the spread of HIV in the Beira Corridor in central Mozambique caused by high levels of prostitution there, according to a report released this week.
The non-governmental organization is concerned about the spread of the virus along the corridor connecting Beira with Zimbabwe, with many heavy vehicles carrying passengers and goods in circulation.
MSF has developed an awareness project with the corridor’s sex workers and their clients, but say it is not enough to promote condom use. Authorities must also increase the availability of antiretroviral drugs and the access of vulnerable groups to them, as only combined use of these methods can significantly reduce transmission of the virus.
According to the international humanitarian organization, there are no condoms “readily available for sex workers in Beira”, and without MSF and other humanitarian organization distributing free condoms, sex workers would have to purchase them themselves.
A 2012 study by Doctors Without Borders identified 714 sex workers in Beira, and the ‘Corridor’ project could involve a further 600. The organization estimates that the potential number of sex workers in Beira exceeds 7,000.
The numbers are clear. “Thirty percent of women in Beira surveyed by MSF who were free of HIV contracted the disease in the following 12 months,” the report said.
“The lack of free condoms and the unwillingness of customers to use them are an obstacle” to sex workers protecting themselves from HIV.
“The sex workers should also have access to post-exposure prophylactic drugs that can prevent transmission of the virus after sexual activity without protection,” MSF says.
Sex worker Gloria, born in Zimbabwe and HIV positive for over 10 years, travels home regularly or gets someone to send anti-retrovirals to her in Beira where she works, MSF reports, but this is not a solution for most foreign women living in Mozambique, particularly in Beira.
Given this, MSF coordinator in Beira Christophe Cristin says that in the first place, it is necessary to “treat a sick healthcare system”.
Also among the vulnerable are men who have gay sex, but this group “is extremely difficult to reach,” taking into account “their intense discrimination and criminalization”.
Mozambique’s official statistics suggest that 1.6 million people in Mozambique are infected with HIV/Aids, but only 640,000 have sought treatment, and more than a third drop out of programmes in the first year.
For the MSF original report http://www.msf.org/en/article/20160602-mozambique-reaching-out-sex-workers-beira-corridor
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