Sexual networking, STDs and HIV/AIDS in four urban gaols in Nigeria

Abstract

Truck drivers, female hawkers and prostitutes are generally regarded as high-risk groups because they have a high rate of partner change, run abnormally high risks of being infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV/AIDS, and are capable of transmitting them to the general population who live around them (Orubuloye, Caldwell and Caldwell 1993; Orubuloye 1995). Recent experience has shown that the prison population runs a high risk of being engulfed by AIDS. By late 1992, HIV-positive prisoners had been detected in at least one of the prisons in Nigeria and there was beginning to be concern for the safety of the prison population. Therefore a study of the prison population was planned as part of a larger continuing research program of the Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria, on Sexual Networking, STDs and HIV/AIDS Transmission, supported by a grant from the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries (SAREC). The aim of the prison study was to investigate the attitudes and activities that are likely to facilitate the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and AIDS; and to develop an intervention program for the prison population and any population that may be in a similar situation.