According to the National homeless (2012), a homeless person is one who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence. For the night, the homeless depend either on a supervised shelter that is privately or publicly operated or in an institution that provides a temporary shelter with temporary living accommodations or a public or private place not designed for sleeping for human beings. This lack of a permanent, safe, and secure shelter exposes this population to sexually transmitted diseases both male and females with females being most vulnerable. This population is also vulnerable to Tuberculosis and a population screening for STDs and Tuberculosis will be beneficial. Then most common STD is Gonorrhea/Chlamydia.
In order to implement TB testing for the Homeless in Las Vegas, some resources would include trained laboratory personnel, funds to buy incentives to entice this population to get screened and the right TB screening toolkit. To screen for STDS, an STD toolkit, trained staff and protective clothing
Since the homeless population consists of both the young and old persons, screening for women should be done in groups of those aged 25 years and below for at least once per year. For those women above 25 years, screening should be done according to risk. Women with risk factors should be screened more frequently. For men, heterosexual and homo sexual men should be tested annually. For both men and women with HIV, referral should be done especially if the urethra or rectal if exposed. All suspected or confirmed cases of TB should be referred to avoid affecting the rest of the population. Among the homeless persons, TB in those who are co-infected with HIV are usually co-infected this poses higher death risk for the population than patient suffering each of the diseases alone.
References
Ministry of health and social welfare, (2012). Management of TB/HIV co-infected patients. Retrieved from http://www.google.co.ke/search?q=TB+referrals&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
