World Health Organization Turns to Internet to Help Prostitutes Fight HIV/AIDS

The U.N. health agency Thursday said it plans to use the Internet to help prostitutes in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
Launching its computer-based information campaign, the World Health Organization said that prostitutes whether male, female or transsexual are at high risk of HIV infection but rarely have access to treatment. They often also miss out on general medical care, WHO added.
Once infected, prostitutes are likely to pass the HIV virus on to their clients, spurring the AIDS pandemic, the agency said.

However, many prostitutes and the organizations which help them lack the information they need to cut the risk.

Working with the aid agency German Technical Cooperation as well as prostitutes' groups, WHO developed a "Sex Work Toolkit." It is already available on the Internet and the agencies plan to hand out CD-ROM versions of the kit to prostitute networks early next year.

The kit offers a collection of over 130 documents, manuals, reports, and research studies bringing together a decade's worth of research on what does and does not work in prevention.

"This tool kit is not just a scientific study for government ministries, but also has a lot of material by sex workers for sex workers," said Dr. Isabel de Zoysa, WHO senior adviser for HIV/AIDS.

Much of it centers on the experience of prostitutes' organizations worldwide to increase access to condoms and AIDS education.

"Our studies show that where condoms are unavailable and health services are poor, the rate of AIDS among sex workers may be as high as 90 percent," said Richard Steen, a scientist involved with the project.

An early 1990s program targeting commercial sex in Bangkok, Thailand, raised condom usage among prostitutes from 14 percent to 80 percent, with a resulting 95 percent decrease in sexually transmitted diseases, WHO said.

In Nairobi, Kenya, a recent effort combining condoms, peer education and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases helped bring the AIDS rate among prostitutes to 4 percent from previous estimates of 25-50 percent. This effort also worked to lower the general rate of infection in the community, Steen said.

A new WHO program in India will encompass six states and 300 million people. In Bombay alone, WHO estimates there are tens of thousands of prostitutes.

"We need to reach out to people working on the streets," de Zoysa said.