Care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS
Care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS
Care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Report on the global <strong>HIV</strong>/<strong>AIDS</strong> epidemic – June 2000Kisumu, Kenya, showed that only half had used a condom <strong>with</strong> their most recentclient, <strong>and</strong> a third had never used a condom. Perhaps not surprisingly, given this lowrate of condom use, fully three-quarters of the sex workers responding to the surveyin this high-prevalence area of East Africa tested positive <strong>for</strong> <strong>HIV</strong>.One of the factors that influences condom use is alcohol consumption. In many continents,commercial sex <strong>and</strong> other risky encounters take place after drinking sessions.People who are drunk are less likely to use condoms than <strong>people</strong> who aresober. The consequences can be dire, as Figure 24 shows. In this South Africanstudy, the prevalence of <strong>HIV</strong> infection was far higher among men <strong>and</strong> women whoconsumed alcohol than among men <strong>and</strong> women who said they never drank. Thiswas true even among women in red-light districts.Figure 24. <strong>HIV</strong> prevalence rates among <strong>people</strong> consuming alcohol <strong>and</strong>among non-drinkers, Carletonville, South Africa, 1998706050<strong>HIV</strong>-infected (%)4030drinkersnon-drinkers20100menwomenwomen in commercial sex areasSource: Campbell et al. (unpublished data)In Zambia, close to a quarter of women <strong>and</strong> a fifth of men <strong>with</strong> casual partners saidthey had been drinking the last time they had sex <strong>with</strong> their casual partners. In westernKenya, most sex workers questioned said that alcohol was involved the first timethey ever sold sex, <strong>and</strong> the overwhelming majority of sex workers in the town ofKisumu said that alcohol was an integral part of sexual transactions, <strong>with</strong> men buyingwomen a drink to signal their interest in buying sex. They also said condom usetended to evaporate when either the client or the sex worker was drunk. Studiesamong men in Europe, Mexico, Zimbabwe <strong>and</strong> Ug<strong>and</strong>a have also shown a strongcorrelation between frequent use of alcohol <strong>and</strong> other drugs <strong>and</strong> unprotected sex.62