In-depth knowledge to guide services for female sex workers

Abstract

HIV incidence rates are unacceptably high, with an estimated 670 000 new cases in eastern and southern Africa in 2020.1 In this issue of The Lancet HIV, Reshma Kassanjee and colleagues2 report HIV incidence among female sex workers in South Africa, on the basis of four different statistical modelling methods of data from a national survey of 118 sex worker programmes conducted in 2019. Three models showed good convergence with high HIV incidence rates (ie, 4·60–6·88 cases per 100 person-years), which were aligned to published data, whereas one model estimated HIV incidence at 21·65 cases per 100 person-years, on the basis of self-reported testing history.