Women catch up with HIV men

The United Nations is saying that the global AIDS epidemic crossed a significant threshold last year when for the first time, according to statistics, “half of those living with HIV are women.” At the start of the epidemic in the 1980s, women were considered marginally at risk from a virus that seemed confined to men who have sex with men, sex workers and intravenous drug users. The UN said educating girls is an effective way of empowering them to become more informed and equipped to succeed in life and prevented the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by giving them greater access to information.

“Girls who stay in school longer and obtain life skills and health education generally become sexually active later and have more awareness of prevention methods and the importance of testing.” In a media release, the UN Information Centre said studies have shown that women are twice as likely than men to contract HIV. In the developing world at the end of 2003, more than half of the people living with HIV were women. In Sub-Sahara Africa, young women between the ages of 15-24 were 2.5 times more likely to be infected than young men. The UN said one of the apparent cruelties of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is that women are at a biological disadvantage relative to men in terms of contracting the disease. Physiologically, women are more vulnerable to HIV infection because they are likely to develop micro lesions during sexual intercourse, “and laboratory tests have shown that male semen contains higher concentrations of the virus than female secretions per unit volume.” The UN said additionally, because the reproductive systems of young girls are underdeveloped, they are more prone to micro lesions, especially when sex is coerced.

“As with sexually transmitted infections (STIs), women are estimated to be twice as vulnerable as men, and the presence of untreated STIs is a further risk of contracting HIV.” Violence, coercion, women’s economic and financial dependency on men also make them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. The UN said more needs to be done to provide women and girls carrying the burden of the disease with training and health care materials “such as disposable gloves and medicines as well as supplemental food and means for paying school fees and other educational costs.”