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Inexperienced Prostitutes Most At Risk Of Sexual Infections
Medicalnewstoday.com,
Dec. 12, 2008. Less experienced prostitutes are more likely to
have sexually transmitted infections (STIs). A study of more
than a thousand female sex
workers in Cambodia, reported in the open access
journal BMC Infectious Diseases, has
shown that girls who were new to the
sex industry were twice as likely to have gonorrhoea or
chlamydia.
Heng
Sopheab from the University of Bergen, Norway, and the
National Center for
HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STDs, Cambodia, led a team of researchers
who
investigated
the prevalence of STIs and the health behaviour
of female sex workers in the popular tourist
destination of Cambodia. He said, "Of the
women we studied, 60% were new workers,
having been selling sex for less than a
year. Prevalence of gonorrhoea, chlamydia, or any STI
was higher among these new workers; overall they were 2.1 times more likely to be infected
than more experienced women".
The
overall STI prevalence in the Cambodian workers was 2.3% for
syphillis, 13.0% for
gonorrhoea and 14.4% for chlamydia. This is the first time that
the association between STI
prevalence and recent entry into the sex trade has
been studied in Cambodia. The obvious
explanation is that newer workers are
more likely to engage in high-risk behaviour because
they lack prevention
information, are unaware of STI services and are less skilled and
experienced in
negotiating safer sex with clients. However, according to Sopheab, "Our
analysis did
not reveal
any significant differences between new and longer-working
women in
terms of
socio-demographic characteristics and risk behaviours that
might explain the
significant difference in prevalence of STIs. Therefore, a biological
difference between new
and more experienced sex workers is one possible explanation".
In
2001, a nationwide government programme was implemented to
encourage 100% condom
usage within the Cambodian sex industry. The authors found
that despite the implementation
this programme, STI prevalence remains
comparable to the 2001 estimates. As well as a
large proportion of women who reported
having unprotected sex with non-commercial
partners, there was limited coverage
and weaknesses in implementation of the policy. The
authors conclude, "This is
likely to have contributed to the sustained high prevalence of STIs
among sex
workers in Cambodia. The 100% condom-use policy should be carefully
evaluated, particularly in terms of human resource capacity, sustainable intensity,
quality, and
coverage".
Notes:
1.
Sustained high prevalence of sexually transmitted infections
among female sex workers in
Cambodia: high turnover seriously challenges the 100% condom
use programme
Heng
Sopheab, Guy
Morineau, Joyce J Neal, Vonthanak Saphonn and
Knut Fylkesnes
BMC
Infectious
Diseases (in press) Article available at the journal website:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcinfectdis/ All
articles are available free of charge,
according to BioMed Central's open access
policy.
2.
BMC Infectious Diseases is an open access journal
publishing original peer- reviewed
research
articles in all aspects of the prevention, diagnosis and management of infectious and
sexually transmitted diseases in humans, as
well as related molecular genetics,
pathophysiology, and epidemiology. BMC
Infectious Diseases (ISSN 1471-2334) is
indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, CAS, Scopus, EMBASE, Thomson
Scientific (ISI) and Google Scholar.
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