HIV prevention and street-based male sex workers: an evaluation of brief interventions.

Abstract

This study shows that brief interventions to reduce HIV risk were acceptable to male sex workers (MSWs) and are efficacious for reducing unprotected anal sex during paid sexual encounters. These methods should be developed to include a suitable mode of replication and rolled out across Africa. particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, which is hard hit by HIV/AIDS and where males who sell sex remain taboo. This study is particularly interesting and important because MSWs who have sex with men in Africa and. even more so. those who are street-based are highly stigmatized. The stigma is doubled if they are also drug users. The methods used in this study to mobilize 399 MSWs and get 112 to participate in the evaluation of efficacy should serve as a lesson on how to produce greater retention in these cohorts as two-thirds of MSWs who enrolled for the brief intervention completed it, and condom use during paid anal sex increased post intervention.