By Wills Robinson For Dailymail. It has been a beloved tourist spot for more than a century and is one of the fastest growing cities in Northern America. But as Tijuana thrives, so does a problem caused by many of the vices drawing thousands of visitors south of the border with Mexico every year.
An AIDS epidemic is developing because of rampant prostitution, unprotected sex and drug addiction. Scroll down for video. Reyna Ortiz holds a syringe in her mouth before injecting heroin on the border between the US and Mexico. She is one of the highest risk groups for HIV: a female who injected drugs and had regular unprotected sex with a male addict who was also injecting.
Transgender sex worker Fernanda Sanchez waits for clients at night on a street in Tijuana's red light district. Transgender women and gay men have the highest HIV infection rates of any group in Tijuana. Fernanda knows how to protect herself from the AIDS virus but said that 'sometimes the customers are very bad and make you do it without condoms'. Pedro arrived at Las Memorias with full-blown AIDS six days earlier but because of bureaucratic delays in the medical system he received no medification.
Police and medical examiners check the body of a man who died of an apparent drug overdose in El Bordo, the section of the Tijuana River Canal that runs along the border with the United States. The epidemic is concentrated in groups like men who have sex with men, transgenders, and people who inject drugs or sell sex.
According to a study as many as one in every men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 may be infected with HIV.
