A surveillance report of HIV status and high risk behaviors among rapid testing participants in Tallinn, Estonia.

Estonia has the second highest adult HIV prevalence in Europe of 1.3%. The primary transmission is among injecting drug users (IDU), who account for 56-90% of HIV infections (Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic: UNAIDS/WHO, July 2008 and Platt et al. AIDS 20(16):2120-2123, 2006). Of those persons newly diagnosed, 50.4% reported injecting drugs in the last 12 months, 16.3% of these reported IDU as the sole risk factor and 31.2% reported IDU among other risk factors. In this sample (n = 790) 170 persons reported a high risk behavior and 51 persons received a positive result through rapid testing. The largest proportion (35.29%) was among persons reporting high risk heterosexual intercourse and second (33.33%) among persons sharing injecting equipment. Covariates in a logistic regression model indicate that male sex (OR = 2.57, 95% CI 1.00-6.59), non-Estonian ethnicity (OR = 2.68, 95% CI 1.46-4.93), higher education (OR = 0.56, 95% CI 0.40-0.80), and high risk heterosexual intercourse (OR = 2.68, 95% CI 1.19-6.02) are statistically significant in predicting a positive HIV status.