People Who Inject Drugs in Mozambique: We need to normalize HIV treatment and care services in specialized community centers for people who inject drugs!

Globally, People Who Inject Drugs (PWID) have limited healthcare, treatment, and prevention services, and they frequently experience stigma and negative attitudes toward healthcare providers when accessing services. Mozambique, with a general population HIV prevalence of 12.5%, has one of the highest rates in the world, and the PWID population has the highest HIV prevalence among key populations, estimated at nearly 50%. Less than half of HIV positives who inject drugs are linked to HIV treatment and are retained in care. One of the main reasons is that HIV treatment is mainly provided in a public health facility and PWID delayed accessing healthcare since they anticipated mistreatment from multiple levels of healthcare providers. To improve the health outcomes in this group, we need to treat them where they feel comfortable and respected. In this commentary, we outline the importance of innovative approaches to enhance the management of HIV-positive PWID. As a country gets close to controlling the HIV epidemic, refocusing and targeting responses to the highest-risk groups becomes even more essential for shaping more effective HIV interventions and achieving epidemic control.

Population Size Estimate of Men Who Have Sex With Men, Female Sex Workers, and People Who Inject Drugs in Mozambique: A Multiple Methods Approach.

BACKGROUND: Accurate estimates of key population size are necessary to design programs and policies to prevent and reduce new HIV infections and to monitor the dynamics of the epidemic. The first bio-behavioral surveillance surveys, with population size estimation activities, were conducted in Mozambique in 2010 to 2014. METHODS: We used multiple methods-sequential sampling, unique object, unique event, and service multipliers-to estimate the numbers of men who have sex with men (MSM), female sex workers (FSW), and people who inject drugs (PWID) living in major cities in Mozambique. Results were applied to population sizes to estimate the number of people living with HIV and those unaware of their status. RESULTS: Our results suggest that Maputo has 5182 MSM, which constitutes 1.0% of the adult male population (plausibility bounds, 0.5%-2.6%); Beira, 1796 (1.4%, 1.0%-2.2%); and Nampula, 874 (0.6%, 0.4%-1.6%). The number of FSW population is 1514 (0.6%; plausibility bounds, 0.4%-1.6% of adult female city population) in Maputo, 2616 (2.2%, 1.3%-6.0%) in Beira, and 2052 (1.4%, 0.8%-5.9%) in Nampula. The number of people who inject drugs is 2518 (0.4%; plausibility bounds, 0.3%-0.5% of adult male city population) in Maputo and 1982 (1.2%, 0.6%-1.9%) in Nampula. People living with HIV ranged from 25 to 497 MSM, 382 to 664 FSW, and 712 to 1340 PWID, whereas people living with HIV unaware of their HIV positive serostatus ranged from 24 to 486 MSM, 327 to 552 FSW, and 265 to 468 PWID. CONCLUSIONS: Although estimates generally fell within the range of those from the literature, the triangulation of survey and programmatic data over time will increasingly refine population size estimates and support the optimal allocation of limited resources.

High burden of self-reported sexually transmitted infections among key populations in Mozambique: the urgent need for an integrated surveillance system.

BACKGROUND: Key populations - men who have sex with men (MSM), female sex workers (FSW) and people who inject drugs (PWID) - are at high risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI) given their sexual risk behaviours along with social, legal and structural barriers to prevention, care and treatment services. The purpose of this secondary analysis is to assess the prevalence of self-reported STIs and to describe associated risk factors among participations of the first Biological Behavioural Surveillance (BBS) in Mozambique. METHODS: Responses from the first BBS surveys conducted in 2011-2014 were aggregated across survey-cities to produce pooled estimates for each population. Aggregate weighted estimates were computed to analyse self-reported STI prevalence. Unweighted pooled estimates were used in multivariable logistic regression to identify risk factors associated with self-reported STI. RESULTS: The prevalence of self-reported STI was 11.9% (95% CI, 7.8-16.0), 33.6% (95% CI, 29.0-41.3), and 22.0% (95% CI, 17.0-27.0) among MSM, FSW and PWID, respectively. MSM who were circumcised, had HIV, reported drug use, reported receptive anal sex, and non-condom use with their last male partner had greater odds of STI self-report. STI-self report among FSW was associated with living in Beira, being married, employment aside from sex work, physical violence, sexual violence, drug use, access to comprehensive HIV prevention services, non-condom use with last client, and sexual relationship with a non-client romantic partner. Among PWID, risk factors for self-reported STI included living in Nampula/Nacala, access to HIV prevention services, and sex work. CONCLUSION: The high-burden of STIs among survey participants requires integrated HIV and STI prevention, treatment, and harm reduction services that address overlapping risk behaviours, especially injection drug use and sex work. A robust public health response requires the creation of a national STI surveillance system for better screening and diagnostic procedures within these vulnerable populations.