Every week, Montgomery AIDS Outreach hands out up to 200 condoms. They give them away across the counter in brown paper bags -- often to prostitutes who walk over from nearby truck stops on South Boulevard right off Interstate 65.
Tommy Chavis, an educator with the outreach organization, said he's glad they come in for the condoms.
"If anyone needs them, then they do," he said.
He knows that prostitutes play a part in spreading HIV/AIDS. It's difficult to tell how big a part.
"I'm sure it's a lot bigger problem than we think," he said, adding that he personally believes it to be "huge."
In Alabama in 2008, there were 839 reported HIV/AIDS cases. Montgomery County accounted for 122 of those cases -- and had the highest number in the state per capita -- while Autauga County had 10 and Elmore County had 12 cases.
From Jan. 1 through March 31 of this year, 18 cases were reported in Montgomery County, and two in Autauga County and three in Elmore County.
Prostitutes face a double threat of contracting the virus, because many of them engage in prostitution to earn money for their drug habits, and HIV can be passed on through either sexual contact or through using infected needles.
In Alabama, there were 38 new HIV cases in 2008 from injection drug users alone, Chavis said. In total there have been cumulative 1,805 HIV cases from injection drug users since the epidemic started in the '80s, he said.
Pastor Vincent Rosato of the Friendship Mission said prostitutes are aware of the HIV/AIDS risk.
On the streets, HIV/AIDS is not something that prostitutes talk about much, but many of them do get tested for it, said Rosato.
"The girls are conscious of it," he said.
But being conscious of it and always taking precautions aren't necessarily the same thing.
It can be difficult combating HIV/AIDS in an environment in which prostitutes often live day-to-day without having any longer-range objectives than satisfying their immediate drug or alcohol cravings.
Everything about the lifestyle is carefree, Rosato said.
"There is nothing serious," he said. "They live for the moment."
But both they and others also sometimes risk death for the moment.
"Of course, some of them (prostitutes), I've heard they do have HIV and don't bother to tell their man. I've heard that -- the men will say that."
If a prostitute has HIV, the victims aren't always the men with whom they have sex.
There was a case earlier this year in which a woman tested positive for HIV, Chavis said.
So did her baby.
"The husband didn't test positive," he said, "but she said prostitution was part of it. That's how she got infected, selling herself for drugs.
"That's our biggest problem right now is getting them treated for their drug abuse."
They can get free HIV swab tests through the Lighthouse Counseling Center. Shalandra Rogers, the prevention director at the center, said that to her knowledge the center has not tested anyone who has admitted to being a prostitute.
"We don't normally have people come in and say they are prostitutes, and say they have slept with x, y, z," Rogers said.
Additional Facts
HIV/AIDS RATES
While experts said there is no way to tell how many HIV/AIDS cases prostitutes helped spread, they say there is no question that they are a part of the problem, and in Montgomery County the problem is huge. There were 839 HIV/AIDS cases reported in Alabama in 2008, and Montgomery County had the highest percentage of incidents in the state. Below are HIV/AIDS incidence case rates for Jan. 1, 2008-Dec. 31, 2008, by county per 100,000 people.
A Montgomery County: 55.05 (122 cases)
A Dale County: 49.23 (24 cases)
A Russell County: 40.55 (20 cases)
A Limestone County: 38.31 (27 cases)
A Bullock County: 36.18 (4 cases)
A Autauga County: 20.57 (10 cases)
A Elmore County: 16.23 (12 cases)
Source: Alabama Department of Public Health To see more of the Montgomery Advertiser, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Montgomery Advertiser, Ala. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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