Objective: To understand the status of HIV sexual transmission among HIV-sero-discordant spouses and HIV-sero-accordant spouses in Yunnan province, to discuss the related factors and to provide evidence for HIV prevention and control strategy.
Methods: Five places with serious epidemic and 3 moderate ones were voluntarily, randomly selected. According to time sequence, 300 spouses (600 people) with stable marriage were interviewed with questionnaire.
Results: HIV-sero-accordant spouses occupied for 40.7% of the total spouses under survey, with the others were HIV-sero-discordant ones. Among the ones that had already been diagnosed in the families, sexual transmission was their main mode of transmission, which was accounted for 68.3%, followed by IDU as 19.7%. After disclosed the HIV test outcomes to their spouses, 63.4% HIV-sero-discordant spouses and 47.0% HIV-sero-accordant ones changed their sexual behaviors. The rates of consistent condom use among the HIV-sero-discordant spouses increased from 16.8% to 95.0%, and in HIV-sero-accordant spouses increased from 8.2% to 60.9%. Data were analyzed by multi-factor logistic regression. Factors on influencing the sexual transmission in spouses would include condom use, frequency of sexual contacts and sexual transmission disease (STD) status etc.
Conclusion: The main transmission mode for the first HIV infected spouse was sexual transmission. Factors influencing sexual transmission in spouses would include condom use, frequency of sexual contacts, STD situation and husband was the first one being infected in the families, etc. Disclosure of the HIV results to the spouses could make a significant changes in the frequencies of sexual contact as well as the rate of condom use.