HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: new study methods, results, and implications for prevention and care.

摘要

Of all areas of the world, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA, see Fig. 1 for countries included in this supplement's classification) may engender the most perceptions and misperceptions about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the face of a paucity of accessible data. The MENA region, for example, is perceived as the area of the world least affected by HIV/AIDS. According to most estimates, the overall prevalence of persons living with HIV/AIDS in the region is well below the world average [1]. On the contrary, there is also the perception that the infection rate is severely underestimated among the marginalized populations most affected by HIV/ AIDS, namely injection drug users (IDUs), men who have sex with men (MSM), and female sex workers (FSWs). The seldom-estimated size of these populations [2] and paucity of HIV prevalence and behavioral data from these groups may belie a greater existing burden of disease and the potential for rapidly evolving epidemics in some areas of the MENA.