Journal of Advanced Biomedical Sciences

Background & Objective: The immune system of Patients with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is weekend because of Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, and they become vulnerable to several opportunistic and non-opportunistic pathogens and different carcinomas. IV drug abuse, sexual contact, occupational transmission, blood transfusion and maternal-fetal transmission are well known transmission routes for HIV infection. This study was under taken to investigate the prevalence of HIV transmission routs in the HIV infected population of Sirjan, and their knowledge about the disease, in order to plan better preventive strategies.

Materials & Methods: A cross sectional study was planned. During a 6-month period in 2010, all of the HIV infected people in Sirjan (old and new cases) who had a file at the consultation center for high risk behavior, completed a valid and reliable questionnaire.

Results: The definite route of transmission was not clear in any of the patients because they had more than one suspicious route. Injected drug abusers were the most common (88.4%) followed by those who got tattoos (79.1%), invasive therapeutic procedures, dentistry, surgery and endoscopy (56.1%), high risk sexual behavior (62.8%), bloodletting (9.3%), injuries in the barbershop (9.3%) and blood transfusion (2.3%). Conclusion: All of the HIV infected cases in Sirjan were involved with several high risk behaviors, but the major route of transmission, similar to other parts of the country was injected drug abuse. Educational programs for prevention of AIDS should be followed seriously and special attention should be paid to groups with multiple high risk behaviors.