Venereology, Volume 4, Issue 2 (June 2025) – 4 articles

Forced displacement exacerbates health vulnerabilities, particularly regarding HIV prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Refugees often experience heightened exposure to HIV due to precarious living conditions, sexual violence, and healthcare access barriers. Background: Structural inequalities, legal precarity, and stigma hinder HIV care for refugees, especially in resource-limited settings. Excluded from national health programs, refugees often depend on underfunded humanitarian aid. Cultural stigma, limited awareness, and mobility constraints further heighten their vulnerability. Methods: This study draws on a review of peer-reviewed articles, policy documents, and case studies from refugee-hosting countries. It examines healthcare access, service provision gaps, and policy responses to HIV among displaced populations. Results: The article highlights systemic barriers to HIV services, including inadequate testing, inconsistent treatment availability, and cultural barriers to care. Policy frameworks often fail to integrate refugees into national HIV programs, exacerbating health disparities. Conclusions: The exclusion of refugees from national healthcare, compounded by stigma and mobility constraints, deepens health disparities and heightens HIV transmission risks. Without targeted interventions and inclusive health systems, refugees face disproportionate HIV-related morbidity, endangering broader public health in host communities. Full article

Background/Objectives: Syphilis diagnosis in Armenia is unreliable due to inconsistent testing methods, limited access to confirmatory tests, and the underutilization of healthcare services due to stigma and lack of awareness. In 2022, 29% of cases were latent, 8.1% were late latent, 21% were secondary, and 1% were congenital. We assessed primary care physicians’ (PCPs) knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding syphilis diagnosis and prevention to improve early detection. Methods: Between December 2023 and February 2024, we conducted a cross-sectional survey among outpatient physicians. We randomly selected 24 clinics in six regions. In each clinic, we randomly selected respondents from employee registries. We assigned one or two points to correct answers and zero points to incorrect or unknown answers; scores were categorized as Poor (0–<30%), Moderate (30–<70%), and Good (>70%). We used non-parametric tests to compare groups. Results: Of the 413 physicians contacted, 345 (83%) responded; 74% were female; the median age was 46 years; 54% had > 16 years work experience; and 47% worked as general practitioners. The respondents had moderate knowledge of risk groups (56%) and symptoms (49%) and poor knowledge of disease transmission (8%). As for practices, the respondents expressed difficulty in prescribing additional laboratory tests based on clinical symptoms (51%) and struggled with reporting diagnosed syphilis cases (66%); moderate opinions on pregnancy termination decisions (65%) were conveyed. The respondents’ knowledge did not correlate with their practice (r = 0.23) and attitude (r = 0.25) scores. Conclusions: PCPs’ knowledge was not positively associated with improved practices and attitudes regarding syphilis diagnosis and prevention. This highlights the need to improve healthcare workers’ post-graduate education and implement an efficient screening program to detect and treat asymptomatic, late latent, and congenital infections, as well as to prevent complications, transmission, and reinfection. Full article