hiv/aids high risk behaviors and necessity of prevention in the population of birjand, east of iran 2013 to 2014: a population-based study

Background: human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)/ acquired immune deficiency syndrome (aids) is a major threat for public health around the world.[objectives]this study aimed at investigating the prevalence of hiv/adis high risk behaviors and necessity of prevention in the population of birjand, east of iran.[methods]this populationbased study was conducted on 5235 subjects from birjand, east of iran, during years 2013 to 2014. subjects were asked to complete a checklist including gender, marital status, and history of drug injection, tattooing, unsafe sexual contact, imprisonment, dental surgeries, bloodletting, and blood transfusion. all subjects were tested by commercially available enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (elisa) kits to detect antihiv antibodies (hivab; genscreen® plus hiv agab, biorad, matnes la coquette, france). the chisquare test was performed and p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.[results]prevalence of hiv was zero. also, result of the study showed that 9 (0.2%) subjects had a history of drug injection, 81 (1.5%) history of tattooing, 44 (0.8%) unsafe sexual contact, 39 (0.7%) history of imprisonment, 1709 (32.6%) history of dental surgeries, and 802 (15.3%) history of bloodletting. history of drug injection, history of tattooing, unsafe sexual contact, history of imprisonment, and history of dental surgeries showed a significant relationship with gender.[conclusions]it is recommended to increase knowledge about hiv/aids behaviors especially in low risk populations to prevent the occurrence of new cases.