San Diego Reader

With the economic slide has come an increase in the number of women applying for state-sanctioned prostitution licenses in Tijuana. For the past three years, the number of such licenses issued by the state under the auspices of the Servicios Médicos Municipales has more than doubled from the previous three years. However, the licenses’ continued validity is incumbent upon frequent health inspections by medical authorities.

Besides the licensed prostitutes, an estimated 2000 pirata prostitutes are selling sex without health inspections or licenses, says director Alfredo Gruel Culebro. Without the willingness on the part of the women to come in for regular testing and to be verified disease-free by the powers-that-be, an increased risk in the proliferation of V.D. menaces the sexoservidora market and its clientele.

The problem is that there is no law forcing the sex workers to register with the Clinica de Atención de Enfermedades de Transmisión Sexual, the branch of the health department that addresses such matters. Such registration would allow for timely intervention in the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and linked infirmities. The score so far this year: 3 cases of HIV infection, 751 cases of gardnerella, 20 cases of syphilis, 30 cases of condiloma virus, 3 cases of hepatitis type C, 121 cases of human papilloma virus (of which 35 have tested positive for cancer), 39 cases of chlamydia, and 535 cases of candida infection.

Source: Frontera