Unprotected sex continues to fuel the HIV epidemic. Therefore, broad prevention campaigns aimed at the general public are still necessary. At the same time, it makes strategic sense to focus first on specific populations including sex workers, men who frequently visit sex workers, and drug users, as well as geographic areas where rapid HIV spread has become an emergency. These range from categories as large as "young people" and "women" to those as precisely defined as sex workers, migrants and soldiers.
Messages for the general public. A number of options are promoted in prevention campaigns directed at the general public. One message is to abstain altogether from sex β or, for young people who have not yet become sexually active, to postpone the start of their sex life.
Another is to engage in sex that involves no penetration. As a further option, people are encouraged to have sex with only one other person β someone who will never have sex with anyone else. Mutual fidelity is protective, of course, only if both partners stick to the rules and were uninfected to begin with.
Finally, the consistent and correct use of condoms either male or female condoms for every act of sexual intercourse protects both partners from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. People may adopt different prevention strategies at different points in their lives, and good prevention campaigns emphasise that many options are available which reinforce each another. In campaigns directed at "the general public" it must be remembered that half of the population is male, and that men have not only responsibilities but their own factors that make them vulnerable to HIV infection.
This is discussed in more detail in the next chapter, under the heading "Men: also vulnerable, but in different ways. Reaching sex workers and their clients. In many countries, HIV was first identified in the sex work population. As the epidemic grew, international agencies, governments, and NGOs recognised the need to create interventions to diminish HIV transmission in commercial sexual encounters.
