Precariousness and Sexual Vulnerability of People From Haiti Living With or Without HIV in French Guiana

French Guiana is a French overseas territory located in the Amazon basin of South America. It faces several challenges with dynamic demographics, poverty affecting nearly half of the population and significant immigration (more than a third of the Guianese population). People from Haiti represent 25% of foreigners living in French Guiana (census data, INSEE). This follows several waves of migration, including the major one dating from 2015. They are also over-represented among people living with HIV (PLWHIV). Work analyzing the slope of CD4 decrease and phylogeographic analyses suggests that a large proportion of HIV infections occur in French Guiana. The living conditions of Haitians after the arrival in French Guiana are often degraded, combining financial, administrative and housing precariousness. These conditions could increase the risk of having sex at risk of acquiring HIV and sexually transmitted infections when they occur in a context of social or sexual vulnerability or of priced intercourse in a context of survival. The 2013 ANRS-Parcours survey highlighted this sexual vulnerability among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa living in Ile-de-France, using a biographical methodology which allowed comparing living conditions with the sexuality of people.

The present project proposes to set up a cross-sectional epidemiological and biographical study among PLWHIV from Haiti and people born in Haiti who declare not to be infected by HIV. The aim of the study will be to assess the frequency of unsafe sex (including forced sex) after the arrival in French Guiana of people from Haiti and their association with living conditions and the acquisition of HIV infection, year by year. It looks for better understand the living conditions of Haitians people after their arrival in French Guiana, to shed light on the use of screening and the determinants of late diagnoses, the delay in entering care but also the retention in care after the diagnosis, especially during the particular period of the Covid 19 epidemic. PLWHIV will also be offered a phylogenetic study to better understand HIV transmission.

Recruitment will focus on a group of PLWHIV from Haiti followed at the Cayenne, Kourou or Saint-Laurent du Maroni hospital and a group of people born in Haiti uninfected followed by general medicine, the health center for the poor (Permanence d'Accès aux Soins de Santé) or by the Prevention Health Center of French Red Cross in the municipalities of Cayenne, Matoury, Macouria or Kourou. Social, demographic and administrative data relating to the migratory journey, sexuality, the use of screening, the tools of diversified prevention, entry and retention in care will be collected. Part of the information will be collected each year since arriving in France using a biographical grid.

The results of this study are likely to improve the understanding of the situations of sexual vulnerability of immigrants from Haiti with a view to setting up a course in sexual health integrating an offer of screening and medicalized prevention to reduce the risk of HIV infection, STIs (sexually transmitted infections), unwanted sexual intercourse and unwanted pregnancies. They will articulate with the work already underway to develop a prevention and care offer directly within the informal settlements where a population mainly from Haiti lives.

It will also help to better understand the journey of Haitian PLWHIV after their diagnosis and produce information useful for the implementation of actions likely to prevent patients from being lost to follow-up.