Men who have sex with men MSM are more likely to be living with HIV than other adult men in low- and middle-income countries. MSM experience barriers to accessing HIV services including a lack of available specialized care, and community-level stigma and discrimination. With appropriate funding and resources, community-based organizations that provide care specifically for MSM can improve access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care services.
Additionally, using social networks to reach MSM can connect greater numbers of the population to effective HIV interventions, which will improve health outcomes and decrease onward transmission of HIV. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Men who have sex with men carry a disproportionately high burden of HIV in Cameroon, and they experience individual, community-level, and structural risks of HIV infection as well as significant barriers to accessing HIV prevention and treatment services. More established community-based organizations that provide care specifically for men who have sex with men can improve access to health services among the population. Scaling up community-led HIV interventions and leveraging social networks of men who have sex with men can decrease barriers to care and increase health service uptake.
The Central African nation of Cameroon is one example with an HIV prevalence among the population of reproductive age ages 15β49 of 4. Several factors contribute to an increased risk of HIV transmission and acquisition among MSM, including a greater biological risk of HIV transmission during anal intercourse, versatile sexual positioning that facilitates rapid HIV transmission within sexual networks, and limited access to prevention and care services due to community-level stigma, discrimination and criminalization of same sex practices [ 6 β 9 ].
MSM often have difficulties accessing HIV prevention and care services due to fear of discrimination or arrest, and denial of service provision because of their sexuality [ 10 β 13 ]. In addition, given that there are many countries that criminalize same-sex practices in SSA, data have consistently demonstrated limited provider awareness about the specific health needs of MSM and significant levels of health-care related stigma [ 15 β 17 ].
