One in four trans women in Costa Rica are living with HIV

Prevalence The project for the care and eradication of this epidemic has reached its first stage and intends to continue to generate positive impacts in the second phase

A quarter of transsexual women living in Costa Rica are infected with HIV. Human Immunodeficiency), revealed a study that was made for the first time in this population.

The survey was conducted in the greater metropolitan area and accounted for 416 people, where the seroprevalence is 24.6%, while syphilis These results are part of the country project "Costa Rica, a model sustainable combination prevention and attention to the population of men who have sex with men and transgender women ", which has been developed over the past three years in a manner articulated between organizations and public institutions.

The Director of the 2015-2018 HIV-AIDS Project, Laura Sánchez, said Thursday the presentation that one of the plan's goals is to have statistical information to measure the effectiveness of the actions implemented and take the respective decisions to accomplish the task of eradicating the disease.

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This is the first time we have data on the population of transsexual women in Costa Rica, which is a fundamental step to gain control

"This prevalence is very high and makes us think that it is still urgent that we are working more and more in this population to prevent and treat HIV, "said Sánchez.

They had sex with men (who include homosexuals, bisexuals and those who do not define themselves in these sexual orientations), whose population in the country is 10,127. In this group, an HIV seroprevalence of 15.4% and 10.5% in the case of syphilis was found.

In this regard, the project director indicated that in the past, measures have been done which give

The intention of the project is to continue these surveys at least every three years in order to know the Impact of preventive actions taken to combat HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. 19659012] Action and Prevention

The program aims to contain the HIV epidemic in 14 priority townships of San José and Puntarenas (with the highest incidence).

In the lines of action have been established along the last three years, the national standard for health care without stigma and discrimination against LBGTI people. In addition, a platform for social control of health services for men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans women has been set up.

Sánchez explained that the intention was to provide access to services to these populations who have historically had difficulty in obtaining it effectively.

In addition, the prevention task was a central focus of the project. The results of the actions gave 943 prevention activities among MSM, 15,229 approaches and 4,425 HIV tests. 98,406 condoms were also distributed.

In the case of transgender women, there were 248 prevention activities, 362 approaches, 310 detection screenings and 59,231 condoms distributed.

Another fundamental area was the improvement of the legal, social and environmental environment. the political life of human rights through the promotion of regulations and bills. Sanchez noted that work has been done to remove legal barriers and understand workshops with organizations that serve these populations and the same people to empower them.

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The project included in its first phase $ 48 million from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, coordination of the National Coordination Mechanism and Hivos.

This Thursday, the commitment was signed for the monitoring of the project, which aims to secure funds at the institutional level to support the program.