HIV prevalence and risk behaviors of male injection drug users in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

This first survey wave of integrated biological and behavioral surveillance system in Egypt to track the HIV epidemic among male IDUs found relatively low prevalence of infection compared to global estimates, though the figure is many times higher than the general population. In addition, risky injection practices and unprotected sex were high with sexual networks including men who have sex with men, female sex workers, wives, and other regular and casual partners. The respondent-driven sampling method was effective in recruiting male IDUs and the results are being used to inform surveillance and prevention programs.

HIV among People Who Inject Drugs in the Middle East and North Africa: Systematic Review and Data Synthesis

“…In view of the high HIV prevalence, the emerging HIV epidemic in Pakistan is considered advanced. Another example is Egypt where HIV prevalence was also very low for about two decades (Tables 3 and S4), including the first round of IBBSS in 2006 [40],[41], but increased to 6%–7% in both cities surveyed in the most recent IBBSS in 2010 ( n  = 284 and n  = 274) (Figure 4B) [42]. Consistently, 19.6% of the 409 newly notified HIV cases in 2010 in Egypt were due to injecting drug use, compared with only 1.6% of the total notified cases up to 2008 (Table 4).…”

Unsafe sexual behaviour in domestic and foreign migrant male workers in multinational workplaces in Jordan: occupational-based and behavioural assessment survey

“…23 The obtained prevalence was also higher than the rate of sex with commercial sex workers among male injection drug users in Egypt. 27 The Jordanian population is in general culturally and socially restrained in its attitudes towards free sexuality, and casual sexual intercourse is less likely to occur between Jordanian males and females. 20 28 Owing to the lack of epidemiological studies examining rates of unsafe sex among other groups in Jordan, the obtained rate of unsafe sex among this particular group of workers in the sampled QIZ may not be generalised to other populations in Jordan.…”

HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: new study methods, results, and implications for prevention and care

“…The majority of articles in this special issue present the first integrated biological and behavioral surveillance data for several countries, applying state of the art methods, such as respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to survey FSW, IDU, and MSM in Lebanon [7], IDU in Egypt [8], FSW in Sudan [10] and Somalia [11], and variations of venue-based or time-location sampling (TLS) to survey FSW in Afghanistan [12] and street children in Egypt [9]. These studies demonstrate the feasibility of reaching hidden populations even under the higher real or perceived stigma affecting MSM, FSW, and IDU in the MENA.…”