Caren Weilandt

HIV-Prevention for Migrants Integration of HIV-Prevention into Social Work among Migrant Populations

To date, measures to reach the resident migrant population through HIV/AIDS-prevention provisions in Germany and also in some other European Member States have been limited primarily to analogues or adaptations of approaches developed for the native population. In the personal communication sector regarding HIV-prevention, there have been a few selective culturally sensitive and target group specific approaches to reach the migrant population, which have not been coordinated, either nationally or internationally. The following approach which will be described below, is innovative insofar as HIV-prevention here is an integral element of social work with migrants as a whole and is also introduced into the training of social workers and social counsellors as a unit.

Anonymous survey on infectious diseases and related risk behaviour among Armenian prisoners and prison staff

The prevalence of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV in a representative sample of the Armenian male adult prison population has been determined and prisoners and staff were anonymously asked on risk behaviours (542 prisoners) and on knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards infectious diseases (348 staff members) Prisoners’ knowledge about the sources of transmission of HIV is quite poor, most of the wrong answers relate to activities in the daily prison life. The acceptance of HIV‐infected inmates tends towards extremely negative attitudes. The reported rate of intravenous drug use was 13.3%, and 51% among those are current injectors. Of the ‘ever injectors’, between 15% and 30% reported high‐risk behaviour. Of particular interest was the fact that the self‐reported HIV test results did not correlate at all with the results of the saliva tests. In the study the prevalence of HIV was 2.4%, a rate which is 27 times higher than in the general population. The prevalence rate for hepatitis B among prisoners is...

Prevention of HIV-Infection in Prisons

There is a growing body of literature in the field of intravenous drug use and HIV/AIDS, but nevertheless it is still a matter of debate whether the prisons accelerate or decrease the spread of HIV and AIDS. Prison populations are rising, and in many countries between a quarter and a half of prisoners have injected drugs before imprisonment (1) and many of those continue drug use while inside prison (2). Although several studies in the European region confirmed significant correlation between a history of imprisonment and positive serostatus among i.v. drug users (IVDU)(3, 4), it is still a matter of debate whether the risk of HIV transmission for IVDU is higher inside or outside prison. There is concern, however, that prisons are settings where IVDU still put themselves at high risk for HIV-in-fection by being forced to practise risky injecting behaviour. In prisons, injection equipment is in very short supply and commonly used by different drug users.