Male sex worker’s sexual risk behaviors Before and during pandemic of COVID-19
Keywords:
male sex worker, sexual risk behaviors, pandemic of COVID-19Abstract
Background: COVID-19 is an emerging contagious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 pandemic is changing lives for all people. Including the live of Male Sex Worker (MSW) that is hard to reach population in the surveillance system. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic might influence sexual risk behavioral changes in the MSW population.
Method: Cluster sampling was conducted for data collection. MSW were interviewed 300 in the year 2018 (pre-pandemic period of COVID-19) and 301 in the year 2020 (pandemic period of COVID-19) in Chiang Mai and Chon Buri Province. The HIV infection data obtained from the Oral Rapid HIV Testing was used to determine the HIV prevalence rate. The descriptive statistics, Logistic Regression and Mann-Whitney U were used.
Results: A total of 601 MSW were interviewed, average age 24.69 years old and 27.44 years old. The average age of first anal sexual intercourse was 16.96 years old and 18.61 years old. The prevalence of HIV infection was 2.67 and 3.99 percent. Three factors correlated with the COVID-19 pandemic and showed statistically significant, there were the using drug before had anal sex AOR 0.20 (95% CI 0.10–0.39), used condoms every time AOR 4.64 (95% CI 2.25–9.58), and finding customers via the Internet AOR 2.91 (95% CI 2.25–9.58).
Discussions and conclusions: This study showed that MSW’s have change behavior by increase using social network to find clients. So, the telehealth may be a good option for hard-to-reach populations such as MSW. They are vulnerable groups that should have early vaccinated urgently because they are high risk group to spread up COVID-19, vaccination is a critical prevention to help end the pandemic and have effectiveness to reduce mortality rate.
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