STDs in Tijuana!? Wrap it up!

[JaneM]

Darshman,

I think there is a bit more awareness of health cards than before, but without a doubt the highest % of providers in compliance is the street girl.

They are out in the open and they have the "health card police" checking them more often than the bar girls.

 

[misslabeled]

In the World Sex Guide Formum-Health and Safety-Is bbbj risky? thread I didn't want to write down that studies have shown that getting infected with HIV is hard. I didn't want to encourage anyone to go bareback. I'm not saying that men around here are going to read these things and go ahead and do it. I hope not because we should always use a condom.

Bare back anal is the riskiest activity and the one with the highest probablity of getting infected with HIV. Having sex with skanky girls doesn't mean you will get infected because she may not have HIV to begin with. As long as you or her are not actively bleeding and use the condom properly there is 0% of infection.

 

[Hyacinth]

Sampsonrico, I would like to defer to your experience, especially you being more of a hobbying senior than I am, but when I ask several girls for their "tarjeta salud" (card health, i.e. health card) they have nothing to show me. This applies to street girls (3 of them) and bar girls (2 of them) I asked in the past month.

However, to counter this, several months ago I talked with the coat-check person at Chicago club, and he showed me that they collected all the girls health cards before letting them work. I saw a huge stack of around 30 cards and every month there needs to be a new sticker showing monthly health inspections.

My conclusion is that sometimes they do have health cards, and sometimes they don't. However, bar girls are more likely to have health cards than street girls it seems.

The newest published study I could find is from "Public Health Reports /2010 Supplement 4/ Volume 125". It's called "A Comparison of Registered and
Unregistered Female Sex Workers in Tijuana, Mexico." See link below, a pdf file. Note that although this study was released 2010, the data collected was from 2004 to 2006. Sample size of 410 women includes 181 registered and 229 unregistered. Further caveats: Tijuana is a big place and there is much things going outside the Zona Norte. Places like Zona Este cater to the locals and lots of girls there may not be registered. This data does not mention where they found the chicas.
http://www.publichealthreports.org/archives/issueopen.cfm?articleID=2488

 

[migh]

Let me say that I am not sure what you mean by "skanky street girls" The street girls in Tijuana have their health cards checked more than any other type of prostitute in Tijuana. Many of them are really pretty.

Now if you meant street walker....I would say they are the highest risk for an STD and don't even have health cards.

I believe the Study quoted is not accurate at all and our resident Burt, knows a bit about this study and why the numbers were skewed.....but I will let him comment on that.

Of course wearing a condom is advised anywhere on our planet. STD's effect people of all races, nations, economic statuses and genders.

 

[O.J. Mayo]

I live in a complex by UCSD where a Post-Doc studying HIV lives. I chatted with him and he explained how hard it is for a man having only vaginal intercourse with a woman to get HIV.

HIV is a disease passed through blood-blood contact. Semen and Vaginal Juices can have HIV, but at much lower levels

Further my Dad was an MD resident in New York during the AIDS epidemic and told me the people coming in were: 1. Women, 2. Gays, 3. Drug users.

So, AIDS is hyped up man. Just don't do a girl in the butt bare. Don't fuck girls down there if your dick is cut, and don't inject drugs. Also, don't go for skanky street girls.


(Hope I'm not jinxing myself into AIDS here!)

AIDS destroyed my generation, it turned sex into this ultra taboo thing, when it was mostly affecting people taking it up the butt and drug users. All this "abstinence for life" bull shit made the game so much harder

 

[Danni A]

HIV/AIDS Infection: HIV Among Pregnant Women at Mexican Hospital Much Higher Than Reported Earlier
March 23, 2004
HIV infection among women in labor at Tijuana General Hospital is 14 times higher than previously reported by CONASIDA, the Mexican organization that tracks AIDS cases, according to a University of California-San Diego School of Medicine study. Among 947 pregnant Mexican women in labor tested June-September 2003, the study found a 1.26 percent HIV-infection rate, compared to CONASIDA's estimated HIV-prevalence rate of 0.09 percent.

Input assumptions for total population and HIV prevalence for Tijuana population ages 15–49 years, by scenario and group
Model parameters
Variable Population* HIV prevalence
Total population
Males 347,300 –
Females 339,300 –
Total 686,600 –
Transmission groups
Gay and bisexual men 10,400–17,400 11–19%16,22,23

Injection drug users 6,400–10,000 2.3–6.5%20

Sex trade workers 4,850–9,000 4.8% 21[/COLOR]

High-risk pregnant women 2,900 5.6–11.6%3

Low risk women 15–49 years 326,000–330,600 0.01–0.10%16,25

Low-risk men 15–49 years 321,400–331,400 0.01–0.10%16,25



A qualitative study conducted in 2004 found that FSWs in Tijuana seldom negotiated the use of condoms, had a low knowledge regarding the proper use of condoms, and did not like to use condoms with clients because they were perceived as uncomfortable.29An ongoing quantitative study among FSWs in Tijuana recently found that injection of vitamins and illicit drugs (e.g. methamphetamine, cocaine) was common among FSWs in Tijuana.21 The link between drug use and HIV in pregnant women in Tijuana further suggests that HIV could soon become more generalized in Tijuana unless immediate preventive actions are taken.3 Since the latter study was conducted, HIV antibody screening of pregnant women in Tijuana is now becoming routine, and provisions have been made for administering antiretrovirals to HIV-positive pregnant women.
Our model provides a snapshot of the current HIV situation in Tijuana; however, comparison with earlier figures suggests the situation is dynamic. While studies conducted in 1987 and 1988 found that HIV prevalence was 0.5–1% in FSWs,23,30more recent surveys of HIV in this sub-population found prevalence near 5%.21

Tijuana sex workers' male clients raise HIV risk
Email this article
Date: 2009-07-13
Contact: Debra Kain
Phone: (619) 543-6163
Email: ddkain@ucsd.edu
A study by a bi-national team of global health researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, examining HIV infection among male clients of female sex workers in Tijuana, has found that more than half of the male clients had recently had unprotected sex. They also reported a high prevalence of drug use.
"Targeted intervention among male clients is necessary to prevent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections -- intervention that doesn't solely place the onus on female sex workers," said lead author Thomas L. Patterson of UC San Diego's Department of Psychiatry and the Veterans Administration Health Care System, San Diego.
Tijuana, located in Baja California, directly across the border from San Diego, has a thriving sex industry and is a popular destination for U.S. and foreign sex tourists. While the city's health service does license female sex workers, on condition that they are regularly tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STIs), only about half of them indeed are licensed. In addition, Baja California has the second highest cumulative AIDS incidence of any Mexican state and, in 2006, the HIV prevalence among female sex workers in Tijuana was 6 percent. It has been estimated that as many as one in 112 persons aged 15-49 living in Tijuana is HIV-infected.
"Male clients of female sex workers in the San Diego-Tijuana border region act as a bridge that can potentially transmit HIV and other STIs to sex partners, including their wives," said co-author Manual Gallardo, M.D, Patronato Pro-COMUSIDA in Tijuana. "However, given that only 59 percent of clients reported regularly using condoms with a female sex worker, there appears to be some level of complacency that urgently needs to be addressed."
The study, published in the current on-line issue of the journal AIDS, looked at 400 clients -- about half residents of San Diego and the remainder from Tijuana. Their average age was 36.6 years, with the majority Mexican or Hispanic (about 80 percent) and single, never married or divorced (57.5 percent). During the past year, clients had sex with an female sex worker an average of more than 25 times and over half of them reported having unprotected sex during the past four months.
While only half of clients reported having been tested for HIV, 14.2 percent tested positive for at least one STI (chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis or HIV). The prevalence of HIV infection among clients was similar to that of female sex workers in Tijuana. The risk of contracting HIV was highest for those who lived in Mexico, used methamphetamines or had tested positive for syphilis.
"Of those we interviewed, nearly nine out of 10 reported having used illicit drugs during their lifetime," said Patterson. Many were binge drinkers, and one-third said they were frequently high on drugs when with a female sex worker. This profile of substance abuse -- especially methamphetamine use -- likely contributes to high-risk sexual behavior."
Earlier reports by UCSD researchers suggested that interactions with clients can be a critical barrier to the adaptation of safe sex practices among female sex workers, who reported that some clients are willing to pay double for unprotected sex.
"Our new data suggests an urgent need to develop behavioral interventions to improve the clients' knowledge of the risk of HIV," said co-author Steffanie Strathdee, Ph.D., associate dean for Global Health Sciences at UC San Diego. "Intensified efforts to 'test and treat' should reach out to this high-risk group in ways that are culturally sensitive, recognizing that some men fail to reali