The title of the article is "HIV transmission risk behaviors among HIV seropositive sexually transmitted infection clinic patients in Cape Town, South Africa." What the authors found were that a "significant minority of HIV-positive men and women receiving sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinic services reported recent unprotected sex with known uninfected or unknown HIV status partners" in Cape Town, South Africa (Cain et al., 2009). Now, I struggle to find out why anyone would continue to participate in unprotected sex when they tested positive for HIV? I know that Africa has the highest percentage of individuals who are HIV positive. I wonder if this is because many people here are not educated enough in preventing this disease from spreading. Obviously, there needs to be more positive prevention interventions here in South Africa. To give this topic some mathematical meaning the study stated, "among south African HIV-positive sexually transmitted infection clinic patients, 16% reported engaging in unprotected intercourse with a uninfected partner in the previous month" (Cain et al., 2009). This study also found that "unprotected sex with uninfected partners was independently associated with older age, female gender, alcohol use and other drug use in sexual contexts" (Cain et al., 2009). This article came out about month ago and is recent. What worries me, however is that in 2009 situations such as being HIV-positive with a sexually transmitted infection and having unprotected intercourse should not happen. More education needs to be provided in this area to stop or decrease the number of HIV-positive individuals in South Africa. I believe that the more knowledge that this individuals can obtain will help this situation in the long run. Can anyone think of anything else that can help this situation besides educating people in this area more about HIV and sexual intercourse? I hope this article and blog brought knowledge and interested to you readers.
SOURCE:
Cain, D., Kalichman, S. C., Simbayi, L. C. (2009). HIV transmission risk behaviours among HIV seropositive sexually transmitted infection clinic patients in Cape Town, South Africa. European Journal of Public Health, 1-5. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckp127
WOW! You're blog was very insightful and interesting. I hadn't read very much into your questions about the problem in Africa, and that article was very helpful! But, I do still wonder why would someone that knows they have HIV still continue to have unprotected sex? Maybe they don't care?
ReplyDeleteHi there :)
ReplyDeleteI am the adoptive mother of two boys who were born with HIV. Both their mothers were drug addicts who were of course HIV +. One knew she was infected, the other didn't know until her son was diagnosed. I can tell you that drugs definately were the reason they both became infected. When people are "high" they do things with no reguard to their own safety....they also have sex with people to get the drugs they are addicted to. Good post here!
The first thing you loose when you drink alcohol is judgment. I imagine that it’s even worse with some recreational drugs.
ReplyDeleteI believe there are several important lessons to be taught; one is that everyone is responsible for his or her own body. Outside of rape, it is very difficult to become infected with HIV unless you are an active participant in that infection. Secondly is education about the proper use and care of condoms.
I was in my 30s when I had to start using condoms, and I didn’t realize all of the precautions that are required in their use and care. A conservative argument is that “condoms don’t work” or “condoms fail too often.” This is simply not true IF on knows about proper use and care.
I’m not sure what some of the problems in Africa might be. They could be cultural, access to education and condoms, I really don’t know. Since I’m well into my 3rd decade of being HIV+, I spend most of my energy keeping up with the American front.
I'm sorry, Jaime. For some reason I didn't have you in my google reader, so I will play catch up with your blogs.
ReplyDeleteMany people in South Africa were told by their government that HIV/AIDS was caused by poverty and not by a virus. Testing was an accepted norm in that country for many, many years. It doesn't surprise me that people are having unprotected sex.