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OBJECTIVETo understand the prevalence of high risk sex behaviors and HIV infection status among the female sex workers (FSWs) from Vietnam in Yunnan province during a 5 year intervention project and provide evidence for the improvement of the behavior intervention among this population.

METHODSThe survey was conducted annually among Vietnamese FSWs sampled in a county near China-Vietnam border to collect the information about their demographic characteristics, high risk sex behaviors and HIV test results through questionnaire and in-depth interview by bilingual outreach team. The behavior intervention included peer advise, training, lectures, interactive games, free condom distribution. The database was set up with Excel 2003 and the results were analyzed with SPSS 16.0.

RESULTSThe condom use rates among the Vietnamese FSWs at commercial sex in last month were 1.5%, 36.0%, 67.7%, 86.5% and 90.3% (P<0.05) respectively; and the condom use rates at the latest sex were 89.5%,44.8%, 86.6%,92.5% and 99.0% respectively (P<0.05) . The HIV antibody positive rates were 7.5%, 3.6%, 5.9%, 4.0% and 3.1% respectively (P>0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe condom use rate of Vietnamese FSWs at commercial sex increased by more than 90% after the 5 year intervention project. However, the HIV-infection rate was still high. It is necessary to promote condom use among FSWs from Vietnam and their regular sex partners and strengthen the health education among clients.