Bayesian analysis of the effectiveness of condoms uses as an intervention method against HIV among sex workers and its impact on the HIV prevalence rate in Livingstone, Zambia

Abstract

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is the leading cause of death among adolescents and adults in Sub-Sahara Africa. The rollout of HIV infections in Zambia is faced with the challenges of increasing rate of infections, although the number of intervention programs, government has put in place during the last decade intended to lower the infection rate. The high rate of HIV infection among youth in Africa has prompted both national and international attention. Zambia is experiencing a generalized Human immune virus (HIV) epidemic, with a national HIV prevalence rate of 12.7 percent among adults ages 15 to 49. In Zambia, some intervention programmes which were seen as the primary way of decreasing this rate were put in place to mitigate against new infections. However, the effectiveness of these interventions has not been systematically evaluated. In this article, I describe condom use among sex workers as an intervention program in Livingstone, Zambia, whose primary goal is to reduce new HIV and STI infections and assess their impact in reducing new HIV infection rate. Results obtained indicated that despite this intervention program, it was observed that on average probability of sex workers is 0.5755 (58%) use condoms, with a mean probability of 0.67658 (68%) males use condoms and a mean of 0.4512 (45%) females use condoms when having sex. This percentage use of condoms is not active and has made no positive impact in reducing HIV prevalence rate in Livingstone and even at national level. As at present Zambia has an HIV prevalence of 14.5% distributed among both males and females and Southern Province has an HIV prevalence of 14.7% with Livingstone showing a figure in HIV infection rates of 23.5 percent. In Zambia, HIV prevalence rate has made little progress in the last decade, despite intervention programs put in place as records show a 12.8% adult prevalence in 2007 compared to a 12.4% prevalence rate in 2016.