 The criminal nature of sex work in Burma, as it is prohibited by the 1949 Suppression of Prostitution Act, also contributes to the ineffectiveness of reaching out to sex workers in Myanmar with regard to HIV/AIDS awareness and condom usage.In 2005 in Yangon, there were over 100 brothels and up to 10,000 sex workers, mostly of the Bamar ethnic group, with between 70-90 percent having a history of sexually transmitted infections and less than 25 percent having been tested for HIV.An anecdotal study at that time found that nearly half of sex workers in Yangon had HIV/AIDS.