Research from specialist HIV prevention and treatment clinics for female sex workers in Nairobi has found that the number testing positive for HIV dropped by more than two-thirds between 2008 and 2017. While no single intervention can be identified as to the underlying cause in the decreasing numbers, it suggests that increasing HIV awareness, testing and treatment in Kenya are reaching this population of women, despite the criminalisation of sex work. It is estimated that female sex workers in Kenya are almost ten times more likely to contract HIV than non-sex workers, so they are a key population to target.
The study published in the February issue of AIDS analysed anonymous data collected at seven different Sex Worker Outreach Programs in Nairobi from a total of 33,560 women. The clinics use peer support and outreach workers to recruit female sex workers. When signing up to use the clinic’s services, each woman was offered an HIV test, which was used to monitor rates of HIV. Further information was collected by analysing questionnaires that the women were asked to complete when attending. Only 78% of the women completed this information, as it was not mandatory for enrolment into the clinic.