Review of the Epidemiology of HIV among Sex Workers 9
contribute relatively few infections in most low and middle income countries, it was deemed more conservative to use the background rate calculated with the numerator as those women 15+ and the denominator of those 15–49. As of 2009, UNAIDS did not produce estimates of number of people living with HIV for Afghanistan, Laos, and Albania and thus these countries were excluded from the meta-analysis. Figure 2.1 Systematic Review of HIV among Sex Workers: Search Results Potentially relevant studies identified from online scientific databases (n=19180)
Potentially relevant surveillance reports harnessed from online sources (n=118) Reports excluded based on abstract due to lack of quantitative data, geographical context, sample size, self-reported HIV status n=99
Duplicates excluded (n=16982) Studies excluded based on title review demonstrating lack of relevance to sex work or HIV (n=1783) Abstracts retrieved for review (n=415)
Full texts retrieved for further analysis (n=19) Reports excluded based on lack of HIV prevalence data, inability to calculate country population HIV prevalence (n=8)
Abstracts excluded based on lack of quantitative data or HIV status among sex workers in LMIC (n=183) Full texts retrieved for further analysis (n=232) Articles excluded based on sample size<50, lack of information on sampling, or lack of biologic confirmation of HIV status (n=141)
Data from 102 studies in 50 countries including 99878 female sex workers met the inclusion and exclusion criteria
Source: Authors.
To quantify the number of infections among reproductive age women attributable to infections among female sex workers, estimates of the prevalence of female sex workers by country and region characterized primarily by