Thaindian News

New Delhi, Nov 4 (IANS) The prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) has observed a sharp decline from 25 percent to 6 percent over a period of 8 years in Tamil Nadu among male and female sex workers, a survey said here Friday.

“In five high-HIV prevalent districts of Tamil Nadu, the prevalence of syphilis (one of the most common STIs) has come down from 16.6 percent in 2005 to 4.2 percent in 2008,” Lakshmibai Ratna, project director with the Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative (TAI) said at the 12th World Congress on STIs and AIDS in the capital. Chennai, Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Madurai, and Salem are some of the high prevalence district of the region considering the population of sex workers.

The survey was on the basis of Integrated Behavioral and Biological Assessment (IBBA) among the sex workers.

Interestingly, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has observed that the total number of syphilis cases have come down to 0.8 percent. The AIDS control body says it is close to eliminating the disease.

“The programme was a great success because of the huge involvement of the local communities like Aravanis. But the main innovative work that saw the community interest was branding the clinics as TAI for females and SESA for transgender and kothi communities,” Ratna added.

At present there are 22 programme clinics, apart from 39 private points and 38 health hubs in government settings in Tamil Nadu. The project has started handing over the interventions to the government in a phased manner from 2009.

STIs are infections that spread primarily through person-to-person sexual contact. With more than 30 different sexually transmissible microorganisms, some of the common STIs include gonorrhoea, chlamydial infection, syphilis, chancroid, genital herpes, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).