Vasudeva Meghana, Nakka Raja, Stock Shannon, Ghebremichael Musie
The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Department of Mathematics, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA 01610, USA.
Trop Med Infect Dis. 2022 Jul 26;7(8):147. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed7080147.
Treatments for HIV and other STIs are not readily available in sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-limited areas, where the prevalence of HIV and other STIs is high. In the absence of treatment and laboratory infrastructure to monitor treatment efficacy, increasing awareness of STIs and STI screening are crucial components of STI prevention programs. In the current study, we sought to estimate the awareness of STIs in resource-limited countries and evaluate the strength of the association between the awareness of STIs and STIs infection. We did a secondary analysis of data obtained from 2019 women and 794 men enrolled in a community-based study that was conducted from November 2002 to March 2003 in the Moshi Urban District of Northern Tanzania. We found gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS were well-known among the study participants. However, their awareness of other STIs, including herpes, was very low. We also found that the awareness of STIs was not associated with STIs in men, but women who had prior knowledge of gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV had a twofold higher risk of testing positive for an STI. Education programs aimed at increasing awareness of STIs are needed in the region. The majority of the existing STI education programs in the region focus exclusively on HIV/AIDS. The expansion of the existing AIDS/HIV education programs needs to be strengthened to include information about other STIs.
在撒哈拉以南非洲及其他资源有限地区，艾滋病毒和其他性传播感染的治疗手段并不容易获得，而这些地区艾滋病毒和其他性传播感染的患病率很高。在缺乏治疗及监测治疗效果的实验室基础设施的情况下，提高对性传播感染的认识和进行性传播感染筛查是性传播感染预防项目的关键组成部分。在本研究中，我们试图评估资源有限国家对性传播感染的认识，并评估性传播感染认识与性传播感染感染之间关联的强度。我们对2019名女性和794名男性的数据进行了二次分析，这些数据来自于2002年11月至2003年3月在坦桑尼亚北部莫希市区开展的一项基于社区的研究。我们发现淋病、梅毒和艾滋病毒/艾滋病在研究参与者中广为人知。然而，他们对包括疱疹在内的其他性传播感染的认识非常低。我们还发现，男性对性传播感染的认识与性传播感染无关，但对淋病、梅毒和艾滋病毒有一定了解的女性感染性传播感染的阳性检测风险高出两倍。该地区需要开展旨在提高对性传播感染认识的教育项目。该地区现有的大多数性传播感染教育项目仅专注于艾滋病毒/艾滋病。需要加强现有艾滋病/艾滋病毒教育项目的扩展，使其包含有关其他性传播感染的信息。
