Publications

The Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) AIDS Committee is concerned about providing prevention and sexually transmitted disease (STD) services to increasing numbers of female sex workers (FSWs). We interviewed 250 non-brothel-based FSWs in HCMC in 1997, including 100 detained women at a rehabilitation center, and 150 women soliciting on the street (low income) and in bars (middle income). The majority of women came from provinces bordering Cambodia.

The Behavioral Surveillance Survey (BSS) for HIV prevention programs is based on serologic sentinel surveillance survey methods used in many countries to detect the emergence of HIV and monitor epidemic trends. The main purpose of the BSS is to determine AIDS related behaviors in the project area of AIDSCAP and measure the behavioral change over time. The project area includes highway routes and major urban areas of the Terai covering 16 districts stretching from Bhairawa in the west (Rupendehi) to Kakadbhitta (Jhapa) in the east.

Simple straight forward models like EPI model to complicated mixing pattern models were evolved by WHO and others to project AIDS cases and to estimate new HIV infections. These models are easy to apply, but they are having their own limitations when applied for Indian data. In this paper an attempt has been made to understand the adult mortality due to HIV/AIDS indirectly through cause specific death rates.

This document aims to describe the contribution behavioural data can make to the planning, execution, and monitoring of HIV prevention activities. It considers the available tools and recommends a minimum data collection package that varies according to the stage a country has reached in its HIV epidemic. The purpose of this document is to guide national programmes in setting up efficient behavioural assessment and monitoring programmes to assist them in programme design, direction, and evaluation.

This document presents valuable data about HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, based on the behavioral surveillance surveys conducted in Indonesia in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Opportunistic diseases in a person with HIV are the products of two things: the person's lack of immune defenses caused by the virus, and the presence of microbes and other pathogens in our everyday environment. Effective intervention against opportunistic diseases requires not only the appropriate drug or other medications for a given medical condition, but also the infrastructure necessary to diagnose the condition, monitor the intervention, and counsel patients. As well, use of drugs and tests must be supported by proper storage, handling and administrative procedures.

Military personnel are a population group at special risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV. In peace time, STD infection rates among armed forces are generally 2 to 5 times higher than in civilian populations; in time of conflict the difference can be 50 times higher or more. Paradoxically — and fortunately — strong traditions of organization and discipline give the military significant advantages if they move decisively against HIV/AIDS. Recently, comparative studies of sexual behaviour in France, the UK and the USA showed that military personnel (both career and conscripted personnel) have a much higher risk of HIV infection than groups of equivalent age/sex in the civilian population. Armed forces in other parts of the world reflect the same phenomenon. A 1995 estimate of HIV in Zimbabwe, for instance, places the infection rate for the armed forces at 3 to 4 times higher than the level in the civilian population.

The 1996-97 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) is a nationally-representative survey of 9,127 ever-married women age 10-49 and 3,312 currently married men age 15-59. The BDHS was designed to provide information on levels and trends of fertility, family planning knowledge and use, infant and child mortality, and maternal and child health and nutrition. Fieldwork for the BDHS took place from early November 1996 to mid-March 1997.

The purpose of the Behavioral Surveillance Survey (BSS) is to measure how behavior that is risky for STD/HIV changes in the Cambodian population over time. The BSS will show if sexual behavior in Cambodia is changing across different groups, which will help to understand if the prevention programs are working.

The HIV and AIDS pandemic has created impact on societies like no other past disease. The virus knows no social, ethnic, gender, economic or cultural boundaries. It has caused devastation in many countries in the world, particularly where poverty, crowding and poor human and economic development have provided an ideal environment for the virus to take hold and for AIDS to develop. AIDS is now one of the endemic diseases of the majority of sub-Saharan African countries and is spreading rapidly throughout South-East and South Asia. This document will be presented for endorsement to the governing body of SPC, the South Pacific Conference, as an indication of support for a coordinated, collaborative and appropriate response to HIV/AIDS and STD in the Pacific Islands countries and territories. However, the strategy is only useful if the information is used to guide activities.