Commercial Sex Work During Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Era in the Niger Delta Region: Relationships Between Knowledge, Preventive Practice, and Transmission Potential

Abstract

Background Sex workers, like others, are facing economic hardships and anxiety about their health and safety due to coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), an infectious disease caused by a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Universally, most sex work has largely reduced, moved online, or undertaken covertly because of lockdown measures and need for social distancing to break the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. However, the ability of sex workers to protect themselves against COVID-19 depends on their individual and interpersonal behaviors and work environment. In this study, we sought to determine the relationships between COVID-19 knowledge, awareness and prevention practice (KAP) among female commercial sex workers (FCSW) in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria to inform the development of prevention interventions for this vulnerable population. Methods Data used in this study were obtained from a cross-sectional survey of 604 FCSW operating in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. We used descriptive and inferential statistics to assess their socio-demographic characteristics and COVID-19 KAP adopted against the novel coronavirus. Latent class analysis was used to systematically classify participants’ attributes and behaviors into the most likely distinct clusters or risk groups. Results The majority of the FCSW were singles (86.8%) of childbearing ages, 21–35 years (86.2%), with almost three quarters (73.2%) of them having sex with 3–4 clients per day during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, almost three quarters of the participants had both good knowledge and awareness about COVID-19 but less than half of them (41.1%) implemented good practice to prevent the spread of the disease. However, a highly significant and positive relationship was recorded between COVID-19 knowledge ( r =0.90, p <0.0001) and awareness ( r =0.65, p <0.0001), and preventive practice of FCSW, respectively. About 89.1% of the participants were not very familiar with the symptoms of COVID-19 (p<0.0001). Only 10.9% of the FCSW indicated that they wear facemask at all times, while 45.2% of them do not wear facemask during sexual intercourse with their clients ( p <0.0001). Based on the FCSW attributes and behaviors, we identified three distinct clusters or risk groups (p<0.0001), namely, low-risk takers (Cluster 1), high-risk takers (Cluster 2) and very high-risk takers (Cluster 3) with latent class prevalence rates (γ c ) of 41.13% (95% CI: 37.26–45.10), 33.17% (95% CI: 29.53–37.02) and 25.71% (95% CI: 22.38–29.34), respectively. Conclusion Sex work has high transmission potentials for SARS-CoV-2 because of its operational nature, which does not permit social distancing, and thus, renders certain preventive measures practically ineffective. This is a major c...

Knowledge and Preventive Practices Regarding COVID-19 Infection among the Female Commercial Sex Workers during the Pandemic

“…9 Majority of the respondent (68%) practiced social distancing at least 1 m. 11 More than half of respondents (58.8%) didn't encouraged co-workers to wear facemask and 45.2% said that they didn't use facemask during sexual encounter. 8 Another study was conducted in a community in Saudi Arabia found that four-fifth (80.8%) of the respondents had good knowledge about prevention of COVID-19 which was quite similar to this study and revealed that nine-tenth of the respondents (90.83%) had precautionary measures against COVID-19, which indicate higher level of good practice than this study. 12…”

“…7 In a similar study, among 604 CSWs majorities of the respondents 86.8% were single. 8 A study conducted on KAP in two Pakistani University populations where most of the respondents heard about ongoing corona virus disease (99.8%) and had correct knowledge about causes of COVID-19 (94.2%) which is quite similar to this study. 9 Majority had correct knowledge about mode of transmission from close contact with an infected person (94.7%), symptoms (93.0%) of COVID-19.…”

Prevalence and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity among people who inject drugs in the San Diego-Tijuana border region

“…In a study of female sex workers in Kenya, sexual transactions declined during the pandemic [24] and those most reliant on sex work reported greater food insecurity, which is consistent with our findings. Among female sex workers in Nigeria, those who had knowledge about COVID-19 were significantly more likely to wear face masks, but less than half did so [25]. Despite concerns about sex workers' vulnerability to COVID-19, few countries provide them aid [24,26].…”

Risk, Resilience and Reward: Impacts of Shifting to Digital Sex Work

“…A number of NGOs reported that sex workers were better equipped to deal with the pandemic as compared to the general public, due to their existing health risk awareness and contact with health services [11], even including the most marginalised such as minors trading sex [7,51]. Academic media analyses [33,13] were a fast and efficient way to analyse the situation for sex workers in the pandemic, documenting daily life impacts such as movement restrictions, food insecurity, homelessness; violence and exclusion from government schemes; and the response from sex worker rights organisations.…”

“…Participants had a mean age of 29.3 years, with a standard deviation of 4.23 years. Participants worked in seven countries: the USA (11), the UK (11), Germany (5), Sweden (3), Spain (3), France (2), and Canada (1); some participants worked in more than one country. Half of our participants (17/34) were disabled, however few of them disclosed this in the context of their sex work.…”