Hello from Jos, Nigeria again for the latest developments on the Mary Magdalene Project currently in progress here. 

Well it has almost been 2 months since the project commenced and it has been a fascinating and complicated insight into the lives of the women participating, with a great amount of data and discussion being generated so far.   We are hoping to have some preliminary results on the first 187 women we have tested to date very soon, and it will be a good indicator of what results we might expect at the end when we have hopefully tested over 300 women in total.

Two participants (seated on left and middle) with our nurse/counselors.

Our day begins with the mobilization of the women participating, with Mr. Ayeni collecting them from their particular hotel.   On arrival at the private clinic where we conduct the study, they are taken to their own upstairs area, and we begin with a health talk from either Mrs. Barau or Prof. Onwuliri.  This is in order to try and educate the women by providing some sexual health information and discussion on the specific risk factors and realities they face.  By generating an enhanced awareness of their individual issues we hope to empower them to protect themselves to a greater degree.  This has also had the dual effect of encouraging them to be honest about their current practices, whilst attempting to alleviate any concerns they have about how and why we are running this project, and the benefits both now and potentially they may derive from participating.

What is becoming apparent due to the comprehensive nature of the project is that we are receiving a wide and varied range of data on many aspects of their sexual and physical health, as well as the common themes and trends which may impact this in the habits and practices of individuals and also the more collective influences in the different brothels.   A key part of this has been the questions asked to the women in the pre-test counseling by our wonderful nurses and counselors, which have revealed many of the often sad stories of why the women began sex work, and also the continuing exposure they have to HIV and other STI’s through clients, husbands and boyfriends who do not always wear condoms and are not aware of the risks they face. 

Pictured here L to R are one of the women participants and 2 of our nurses, Nankling and Gloria,  who administer the questionnaires and keep the women company whilst they wait for their colposcopy or results.

So far we have found high rates of both common STI’s such as candidiasis, bacterial vaginosis, and gonorrhoea, and there has also been a small number of syphilis infections.   The short term benefits for these women is the fact that all women have been treated for these infections free of charge on their return visit for the results.  The challenge however in the future is to try and decrease the incidence of these infections by promoting condom use, whilst also finding out whether lemon/lime juice douching may play a preventative role by looking at the differences in prevalence between those who use lemon/lime juice douching and those who do not.  This of course is the exact concept we are looking at for their HIV prevalence, and so far there has been a large number of women who have tested positive, however at this stage the number of lemon/lime users who are positive has not been significant enough to discern definitively whether there is any difference between them and the control group. 

Some of the medical scientists who are conducting the laboratory tests are shown below.

Picture from L to R is;  Monica (collects all vaginal and endocervical samples and oversees writing up of results), William (takes all blood samples for HIV and syphilis testing), and Ejike (conducts and examines all pap-smears for cytology).

We are still in the process of entering all the data in and then we will be able to fully analyze everything and ascertain any relationships, which however will have to take in many potentially confounding issues impacting on the STI/HIV prevalence such as condom use, antibiotic use and the exact type and frequency of lemon/lime juice practice.

Some of the participants and myself on the far right.