|
Women and HIV/AIDS
>>Also available in PDF and Word
Women* are increasingly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.
• Since 1995, women have constituted approximately half of all adults living with HIV globally. Today, women account for 15.4 of the 30.8 million adults currently living with HIV.1
• In many of the world’s most affected regions, women are increasingly at risk. The number of women living with HIV globally increased by 1.6 million from 2001 to 2007.1 In 2007, an estimated 2,900 new HIV infections occurred each day among women.2
• Biologically, women are two to eight times more likely than men to contract HIV during vaginal intercourse.3
• In sub-Saharan Africa, 61 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS are female.1
• In the Caribbean, 43 percent of adults living with HIV are women, up from 30 percent in 1995.1
• In the United States (U.S.), women account for 27 percent of AIDS diagnoses, up from eight percent in 1985. Of new AIDS cases among women, African Americans comprise 66 percent, Caucasian women 17 percent, and Latinas 16 percent.4
• In China, women constituted 39 percent of reported HIV cases in 2004, up from 25 percent two years earlier.5
• In Russia, women comprise 44 percent of newly registered HIV cases.1
Young people,** especially young women, are disproportionately at risk.
• Globally, 3.8 percent of young women and 1.4 percent of young men are living with HIV.6 This means that 5.4 million young women and men are HIV-positive.2
• Thirty-four percent of all new HIV infections occur in young people.2
• In Lesotho, less than 10 percent of women ages 18-19 are HIV-positive. By the time they turn 22, 30 percent will be living with HIV. By age 24, almost 40 percent will be HIV-positive. 5
• Forty-three percent of reported AIDS cases in U.S. teens ages 13-19 are among girls.7
• In Cambodia, three times as many young women are living with HIV as their male counterparts. Likewise, three times as many women overall are living with HIV as men.8
• Worldwide, young women are 1.6 times more likely than young men to be HIV-positive.9
• In sub-Saharan Africa, on average, three young women are infected for every young man; in some countries in the Caribbean, young women are more than twice as likely to be infected with HIV compared to young men.10
• In South Africa, 14.8 percent of young women are living with HIV/AIDS, whereas 4.5 percent of men the same age are living with HIV/AIDS.11
Many women and young people do not have access to the information and services they need to protect themselves from HIV infection.
•Eighty percent of young women cannot correctly identify ways of preventing HIV transmission.6
•Eighty-two percent of young South Africans said they would like to have more information about how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Sixty-nine percent said they would like more information on how to discuss using a condom with a partner.12
The biggest HIV/AIDS risk for many women and girls is marriage.
• More than four-fifths of new infections in women occur in marriage or in long-term relationships with primary partners.13
• In India, some 90 percent of women with HIV said they were virgins when they married and had remained faithful to their husbands.13
• In Ghana, married women are almost three times more likely to be living with HIV than women who have never been married.5
• Throughout countries in Africa and Latin America, more than 80 percent of adolescents who have had unprotected sex in the last week are married.14
Violent or coercive sex makes adolescents more vulnerable to HIV.
• One in three women around the world will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.15
• Fearing violence or rejection, 58 percent of South African girls avoid discussing condom use with their partners.16 Yet in couples where only one partner is infected with HIV, consistent and correct condom use provides the HIV negative person with a near-zero risk of infection.17
• A study among high school students in Swaziland found that almost one in five of the sexually active females had been coerced into their first sexual experience; 6 a study in South Africa found that close to half of sexually experienced young women had been coerced into their first sexual encounter.18
• Violence can be both a cause and a consequence of HIV infection. Women in some studies report not obtaining an HIV test, not disclosing test results, or not requesting that their partner be tested, use condoms, or remain faithful because of a fear of being beaten or abandoned by their partner.19
* Unless otherwise defined, “women,” “men,” and “adults” refer to individuals ages 15+.
** Unless otherwise defined, “young people” refers to individuals ages 15-24.
SOURCES
1 UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2007, December 2007.
2 UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2007: Epidemiology Slides, December 2007.
http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/Epidemiology/epi_slides.asp
3 Cummins JE, Dezzutti CS, “Sexual HIV-1 Transmission and Mucosal Defense Mechanisms,” AIDS Review 2000; 2: 144-154, cited by amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, “Fact Sheet: Woman and HIV/AIDS,” March 2008.
http://www.amfar.org/binary-data/AMFAR_PDF/pdf/000/000/182-1.pdf,
4 CDC HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, Vol. 18, 2008, cited by Kaiser Family Foundation, “The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the United States,” March 2008.
5 UNAIDS, 2006 AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2006.
6 UNAIDS, 2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, May 2006.
7 CDC, Slide Set: HIV/AIDS Surveillance in Adolescents and Young Adults (through 2005), June 2007, cited by Kaiser Family Foundation, “The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the United States,” March 2008.
http://kff.org/hivaids/upload/3029_08.pdf
8 UNICEF, “The State of the World’s Children 2008,” 2008. http://www.unicef.org/sowc08/statistics/tables.php
9 IPPF/UNFPA/Young Positives, “Change, Choice and Power: Young Women, Livelihoods and HIV Prevention,” 2007.
10 UNAIDS, 2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, May 2006, cited by Kaiser Family Foundation, “The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic,” November 2007.
http://kff.org/hivaids/upload/3030-103.pdf
11 UNAIDS, 2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, May 2006, cited by Kaiser Family Foundation, “The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in South Africa,” January 2008.
http://kff.org/hivaids/upload/7365_04.pdf
12 Kaiser Family Foundation and South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), “Young South Africans, Broadcast Media, and HIV/AIDS Awareness: Results of A National Survey,” March 2007.
http://kff.org/southafrica/upload/7614.pdf
13 UNFPA, "State of World Population: The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the MDGs," 2005. http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/english/ch4/chap4_page1.htm
14 Clark, Shelley, Bruce, Judith, and Dude, Annie, "Protecting Young Women from HIV/AIDS: The Case Against Child and Adolescent Marriage," International Family Planning Perspectives, June 2006.
15 Heise L., Ellsberg M. and Gottemoeller M., “Ending Violence Against Women.” Population Reports, Series L, No. 11., cited by UNIFEM, “Not a Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women,” November 2003.
16 Vetten L and Bhanna K, “A preliminary investigation into the links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS in South Africa,” Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2001.
17 Women’s Coalition for ICPD, “Condoms and Disease Prevention,” 1999.
18 Maharaj P. and Munthree C., "Coerced first sexual intercourse and selected reproductive health outcomes among young women in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa," Journal of Biosocial Science 39(2): 231-244, 2007.
19 World Health Organization, “Gender Dimensions of HIV Status Disclosure to Sexual Partners: Rates, Barriers and Outcomes: A Review Paper,” 2004.
Prepared by the International Women’s Health Coalition, last updated May 5, 2008. For more information, contact Whitney Welshimer, Communications Assistant, at 212-979-8500 or wwelshimer@iwhc.org.
|
