Learning from large scale prevention efforts: findings from Avahan

Condom use and prevalence of syphilis and HIV among female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, India – following a large-scale HIV prevention intervention

Avahan, the India AIDS initiative began HIV prevention interventions in 2003 in Andhra Pradesh (AP) among high-risk groups including female sex workers (FSWs), to help contain the HIV epidemic. This manuscript...

Authors: Hari Kumar Rachakulla, Venkaiah Kodavalla, Hemalatha Rajkumar, SPV Prasad, Srinivasan Kallam, Prabuddhagopal Goswami, Jayesh Dale, Rajatashuvra Adhikary, Ramesh Paranjape and GNV Brahmam

Targeted interventions of the Avahan program and their association with intermediate outcomes among female sex workers in Maharashtra, India

Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative has been a partner supporting targeted interventions of high risk populations under India’s National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) since 2004 in the state of Maharashtra. T...

Authors: Mandar M Mainkar, Dilip B Pardeshi, Jayesh Dale, Sucheta Deshpande, Shirin Khazi, Abhishek Gautam, Prabuddhagopal Goswami, Rajatashuvra Adhikary, Shreena Ramanathan, Bitra George and Ramesh S Paranjape

Assessment of the scale, coverage and outcomes of the Avahan HIV prevention program for female sex workers in Tamil Nadu, India: is there evidence of an effect?

Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative, a large-scale HIV prevention program, using peer-mediated approaches and STI services, was implemented for high-risk groups for HIV in six states in India. This paper describ...

Authors: S Thilakavathi, K Boopathi, CP Girish Kumar, A Santhakumar, R Senthilkumar, C Eswaramurthy, V Ilaya Bharathy, L Ramakrishnan, G Thongamba, R Adhikary and R Paranjape

Prevalence of HIV and sexually transmitted infections among clients of female sex workers in Karnataka, India: a cross-sectional study

Studies have demonstrated the significance of commercial sex work in the ongoing transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in India. Clients of female sex workers (FSWs) are thought ...

Authors: Souradet Y Shaw, Kathleen N Deering, Sushena Reza-Paul, Shajy Isac, Banadakoppa M Ramesh, Reynold Washington, Stephen Moses and James F Blanchard

Relationship between reported prior condom use and current self-perceived risk of acquiring HIV among mobile female sex workers in southern India

With the evolution of Health Belief Model, risk perception has been identified as one of several core components of public health interventions. While female sex workers (FSWs) in India continue to be at most ...

Authors: Anrudh K Jain, Niranjan Saggurti, Bidhubhusan Mahapatra, Mary Philip Sebastian, Hanimi Reddy Modugu, Shiva S Halli and Ravi K Verma

Male migration and risky sexual behavior in rural India: is the place of origin critical for HIV prevention programs?

Recent studies of male migrants in India indicate that those who are infected with HIV are spreading the epidemic from high risk populations in high prevalence areas to populations in low prevalence areas. In ...

Authors: Niranjan Saggurti, Bidhubhusan Mahapatra, Suvakanta N Swain and Anrudh K Jain

The costs of HIV prevention for different target populations in Mumbai, Thane and Bangalore

Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative, delivers HIV prevention services to high-risk populations at scale. Although the broad costs of such HIV interventions are known, to-date there has been little data available...

Authors: Sudha Chandrashekar, Anna Vassall, Bhaskar Reddy, Govindraj Shetty, Peter Vickerman and Michel Alary

A dose-response relationship between exposure to a large-scale HIV preventive intervention and consistent condom use with different sexual partners of female sex workers in southern India

The Avahan Initiative, a large-scale HIV preventive intervention targeted to high-risk populations including female sex workers (FSWs), was initiated in 2003 in six high-prevalence states in India, including Karn...

Authors: Kathleen N Deering, Marie-Claude Boily, Catherine M Lowndes, Jean Shoveller, Mark W Tyndall, Peter Vickerman, Jan Bradley, Kaveri Gurav, Michael Pickles, Stephen Moses, Banadakoppa M Ramesh, Reynold Washington, S Rajaram and Michel Alary

HIV risk behaviours among injecting drug users in Northeast India following scale-up of a targeted HIV prevention programme

In the Northeast Indian states of Manipur and Nagaland there has been an ongoing HIV epidemic among injecting drug users (IDUs) since the mid-1990s. Project ORCHID is an Avahan-funded HIV prevention project th...

Authors: Gregory Armstrong, Chumben Humtsoe and Michelle Kermode

Large-scale STI services in Avahan improve utilization and treatment seeking behaviour amongst high-risk groups in India: an analysis of clinical records from six states

Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative, implemented a large HIV prevention programme across six high HIV prevalence states amongst high risk groups consisting of female sex workers, high risk men who have sex with ...

Authors: Anup Gurung, Prakash Narayanan, Parimi Prabhakar, Anjana Das, Virupax Ranebennur, Saroj Tucker, Laxmi Narayana, Radha R, K Prakash, J Touthang, Collins Z Sono, Teodora Wi, Guy Morineau and Graham Neilsen

Condom use within non-commercial partnerships of female sex workers in southern India

Although female sex workers (FSWs) report high levels of condom use with commercial sex clients, particularly after targeted HIV preventive interventions have been implemented, condom use is often low with non...

Authors: Kathleen N Deering, Paranita Bhattacharjee, Janet Bradley, Stephen S Moses, Kate Shannon, Souradet Y Shaw, Reynold Washington, Catherine M Lowndes, Marie-Claude Boily, Banadakoppa M Ramesh, S Rajaram, Kaveri Gurav and Michel Alary

Changes in HIV knowledge, and socio-cultural and sexual attitudes in South India from 2003-2009

As communities face serious pressures on traditional values, such as those posed by HIV infection, cultural inertia may result, whereby existing trends towards more liberalized views of sexuality are stalled. ...

Authors: Janet Bradley, S Rajaram, Stephen Moses, Parinita Bhattacharjee, Anil M Lobo, BM Ramesh, Reynold Washington and Michel Alary

Heterogeneity of the HIV epidemic in the general population of Karnataka state, south India

In the context of AVAHAN, the India AIDS Initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, general population surveys (GPS) were carried out between 2006 and 2008 in Belgaum (northern), Bellary (mid-state) and M...

Authors: Pradeep Banandur, Subramanian Potty Rajaram, Sangameshwar B Mahagaonkar, Janet Bradley, Banadakoppa M Ramesh, Reynold G Washington, James F Blanchard, Stephen Moses, Catherine M Lowndes and Michel Alary

Determinants of condom breakage among female sex workers in Karnataka, India

Condoms are effective in preventing the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, when properly used. However, recent data from surveys of female sex workers (FSWs) in Karnataka in south I...

Authors: Janet Bradley, S Rajaram, Michel Alary, Shajy Isac, Reynold Washington, Stephen Moses and BM Ramesh

Heading towards the Safer Highways: an assessment of the Avahan prevention programme among long distance truck drivers in India

Using data from two rounds of a cross-sectional, national-level survey of long-distance truck drivers, this paper examines the extent and trend of sexual risk behavior, prevalence of STI/HIV, and the linkage b...

Authors: Arvind Pandey, Ram Manohar Mishra, Damodar Sahu, Sudhir Kumar Benara, Uttpal Sengupta, Ramesh S Paranjape, Abhishek Gautam, Satya Ranjan Lenka and Rajatshurva Adhikary

Evaluation of the Avahan HIV prevention initiative in India

Authors: Lalit Dandona and Eric G Benotsch

Evaluating AVAHAN’s design, implementation and impact: lessons learned for the HIV Prevention Community

Authors: Marie Laga and Bea Vuylsteke