Tourist location's terrifying reality with HIV, prostitution and drug epidemics exposed like never before

'Tomorrow is A Long Time' shares stories of transgender prostitutes, the deadly spread of HIV and more

Tijuana is known as a popular Mexican tourist location, and though it is one of the fastest growing cities in South America, it is growing in AIDS and drug addictions as well.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Thousands of visitors stop in Tijuana every year, helping the city's economy and local population. However, an AIDS epidemic has developed as a result of prostitution and drug addiction.

The epidemic is particularly prevalent in certain social circles, such as groups that include gay sexual relationships, transgendered people, those who inject drugs and prostitutes.

According to the US National Library of Mecidine National Institutes of Health, one in every 125 men and women in Tijuana aged 15 to 49-years-old had HIV as of 2006.

As Daily Mail notes, this number does not reflect the number of children born diagnosed with HIV as a result of their AIDS-positive parents.

In their new book, "Tomorrow is a Long Time," photographer Malcolm Linton and writer Jon Cohen, traveled to Tijuana to collect images and stories of the city's sex workers, drug addicts and more.

The pair followed 24 people over a period of two years to collect enough insight to accurately portray the "unchecked HIV/AIDS epidemic."

One woman, Fernanda, is a prostitute who is addicted to crystal meth, as are several other prostitutes in Tijuana. She works in the Red Light District, and though she often tries to protect herself from contracting HIV, she reported some men demand service without a condom.

 Sergio Borrego is pictured above tending to 51-year-old Pedro Robles, who has a net placed over his face to keep flies away as he dies of AIDS.

Unfortunately for Robles, there were bureaucratic delays in his appeals for medical help and he entered Las Memorias Hospital six days before the picture was taken. He has been diagnosed with "full-blown AIDS" and will die as the disease has progressed too far.

In an interview with the Pulitzer Center, Cohen stated, "We both felt as though we always moved too quickly from place to place. We wanted to look at the epidemic in one place for a period and it intersected with this global push to try to end AIDS in given locals because of all these research advances...

"We chose Tijuana for several reasons ... Malcolm speaks Spanish and was interested in living there."

Linton chimed in, saying, "It was very important to be close to the people so when things happened I could be right on top of it and I could circle around the town every day, maybe a couple of times, looking for people to photograph and none of the photographs were set up so it was a matter of trying to catch people doing what they were doing. And I had to be there for that."

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