Kenya is currently experiencing both a generalized and a concentrated HIV epidemic. It has a national HIV prevalence of 6.3% and 1.3 million people between the ages of 15 to 64 across the country are living with HIV. According to the Kenya National AIDS Control Council (NACC), female sex workers (FSW) and their clients account for 14.1% of new infections. The Kenyan national response has recently started targeting research and programming efforts towards key population groups, and specifically FSW. However, migrants have not been targeted as a distinct category. The National AIDS and STI Control Programme (NASCOP), NACC, the Joint UN Team on AIDS (JUNTA), the Kenya AIDS Control Project (KACP) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) partnered to implement the first integrated biological and behavioural surveillance (IBBS) survey among migrant FSW in Kenya.
The objective of the study was to establish information that contributes towards developing an evidence-informed response to HIV/AIDS among female sex workers. The study aimed to:
- Establish HIV and STI prevalence among migrant female sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya.
- Determine HIV and STI knowledge, attitudes, risk behaviour, treatment seeking behaviour, and preferred sources of HIV/STI information.
- Provide baseline HIV and STI behavioural and biological prevalence estimates to measure trends over time.