FHI Focus on Bangladesh

Bangladesh is still a low HIV prevalence country, but faces tremendous challenges in remaining so. Although the first two national HIV Sentinel Surveillance rounds indicated low HIV prevalence among high risk groups such as Injecting Drug Users (IDUs), Male and Female Sex Workers and Transgenders, the simultaneously undertaken Behavioral Sentinel Surveillance (BSS) among the same groups showed very high rates of risk behavior, low condom use, low levels of risk perception and alarming levels of self-reported sexually transmitted infections (STI). FHI’s behavioral research among other high-risk groups strongly supports the BSS data and indicates that Bangladesh may not escape an HIV/AIDS epidemic.