Unsafe sex drives HIV infection

Maruf Mallick, bdnews24.com, staff correspondent, Bangladesh

Dhaka, Sept 27 (bdnews24.com)—Increasing risky extramarital sex practices among the Bangladeshi males is likely to exacerbate the rate of HIV-AIDS infection countrywide, says a recent ICDDR, B study.

“We have to be extra careful about handling our sex life, as we’re highly vulnerable now because most people care very little about using condoms and choosing sex partners,” said ICDDR, B researcher Dr Mahbub Elahi to bdnews24.com Wednesday.

The study found efforts to raise awareness and to take protection against HIV infection was not seeing much success because of the high incidence of extramarital sex with sex-workers and chance acquaintances coupled with general nonchalance about using condoms.

These trends point to the possibilities of huge explosion in the rate of HIV infection in the near future, the study warned.

The study showed that females were less prone to having extramarital sex compared with males. Only about 11 percent of females with their husbands living abroad tended to be promiscuous.

It also revealed that habitually more promiscuous males tended to be more aggressively so when they were separated from their wives or regular sex partners.

The 2005 study conducted in Dhaka, Chittagong, Cox’s Bazaar, Bogra, Rajshahi and Faridpur districts on the sexual behaviours of 7,122 males observed that 18 percent of the survey respondents had experienced extramarital sex and 56 percent had sex with more than one partners.

Of the respondents, 52 percent were townspeople and 59 percent earned less than Tk 5,000 a month. Three-fourths of them were in services, the rest being farmers or labourers.

Males aged below 30 years were found to be most promiscuous among the different age groups; of them, 27 percent were bachelors.

“In case the current rate of extramarital sexual aberrations aggravates, it should be quite dangerous,” said BSMMU virology professor M Nazrul Islam to bdnews24.com.

He said the ICDDR, B study is a scientific one and reiterated, ”We’ve to seriously consider ways of curbing unsafe sex everywhere.”

The study found that more and more of the low-income people tended to have sex with risky partners. Again, it was them who did not care about using condoms while going for risky sex.

Promiscuity leads to HIV infection in increasing number of cases also.

The study highlighted the need for effectively changing the male sexual behaviour generally through cutting down on changing sex partners and using condoms regularly.

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