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Sex workers abandoned as COVID crackdowns undo Africa’s HIV efforts

Controlling COVID-19 is worsening Africa’s HIV epidemic and destroying HIV services, with sex workers facing hardship, illness and death.

By Lydia Namubiru, Kerry Cullinan and Soita Khatondi Wepukhulu
Sex workers abandoned as COVID crackdowns undo Africa’s HIV efforts
Sex workers in Maputo, Mozambique | Jeronimo Muianga/DPA/PA Images
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Before the COVID-19 crisis, Ugandan sex worker Lillian Namiiro worked on the Tanzanian border, where she also educated her fellow sex workers and connected her community to the national HIV response. 

She reminded government workers to send antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to nearby health centres. She checked whether sex workers needed drug refills, and gathered them for health talks about HIV tests, pre-exposure drugs (PrEP) or ARVs. 

But with the COVID-19 crisis, “All that ended. The sex workers who want drugs can’t get them,” Namiiro says. When she called the government health workers to ask for drugs, she was told to wait until COVID-19 was over.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0