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HIV Prevalence and Risk Factors Among Male Foreign Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa

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Abstract

While migration has been shown to be a risk factor for HIV, variation in HIV prevalence by subgroups of migrants needs further exploration. This paper documents the HIV prevalence and key characteristics among male foreign migrants in Cape Town, South Africa and the effectiveness of respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to recruit this population. Participants in this cross-sectional study completed a behavioral risk-factor questionnaire and provided a dried blood sample for HIV analysis. Overall HIV prevalence was estimated to be 8.7 % (CI 5.4–11.8) but varied dramatically by country of origin. After adjusting for country of origin, HIV sero-positivity was positively associated with older age (p = 0.001), completing high school (p = 0.025), not having enough money for food (p = 0.036), alcohol use (p = 0.049), and engaging in transactional sex (p = 0.022). RDS was successful in recruiting foreign migrant men. A better understanding of the timing of HIV acquisition is needed to design targeted interventions for migrant men.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under the terms of Cooperative Agreement Number 5U2GPS001137-4. The findings and conclusions in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Global Public Health, New York University, 411 Lafayette Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY, 10003, USA

    Margaret Giorgio, Sally Guttmacher & Rebecca Carter

  2. Health Systems Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa

    Loraine Townsend, Yanga Zembe & Cathy Mathews

  3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pretoria, South Africa

    Mireille Cheyip

  4. School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Cathy Mathews

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  1. Margaret Giorgio
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  2. Loraine Townsend
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  3. Yanga Zembe
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  4. Mireille Cheyip
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  5. Sally Guttmacher
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  6. Rebecca Carter
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  7. Cathy Mathews
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Correspondence to Margaret Giorgio.

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Conflict of Interest

Margaret Giorgio, Loraine Townsend, Yanga Zembe, Mireille Cheyip, Rebecca Carter, and Cathy Mathews declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Giorgio, M., Townsend, L., Zembe, Y. et al. HIV Prevalence and Risk Factors Among Male Foreign Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa. AIDS Behav 21, 949–961 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-016-1521-8

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