Human immunodeficiency virus infection among patients with sexually transmitted diseases attending private clinics, Miri, Sarawak

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the feasibility of establishing a sentinel human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) surveillance system involving patients with sexually transmitted diseases attending private clinics in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. Information on risk behaviours for HIV infection were also collected. A total of 73 female and 254 male patients were interviewed and rested for HIV infection. 35.6 % of the women reported working as prostitutes. The commonest diagnosis among women was gonorrhoea (15.1%) followed by syphilis (12.3 %). Other diagnoses included candidiasis (8.2 %), genital warts (6.8 %) and herpes genitalia (4.1%). 33 (45.2 %) of the 73 women had a previous history of STD of whom 11 (63.3 %) have had 2 episodes of infection or more. Only 5.8% of female patients had their male partners using condoms most of the time, 65.2% hardly used condoms at all. Two hundred and fifty two (99.2 %) of the male patients were heterosexual, while 2 (0.8 %) were bisexual. 70.8% had more than one sex partner during the past one year. One hundred and forty seven (57.9 %) said that virtually all (>95% of the time) their sex partners were prostitues. Most men (92.9 %) had sex with prostitutes in Malaysia; 3.2% also have had sex with prostitutes in Thailand or the Philippines while only 2% had sex with prostitutes in other countries. One hundred and eighty-six (73.2 %) of the men never used condoms, while 12.2% used condoms rarely. Only 8 (3.1 %) used condoms most of the time.