Explore various issues acounting for the growing numbers of HIV Positive women. Gender inequality in treatment and prevention is addressed.
AIDS/HIV is a gender issue. As the world prepares for the XVI International AIDS Conference in August in Toronto Canada, agencies such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations Population Fund report that the HIV infection is making its greatest inroads amongst women and girls. Worldwide their numbers continue to overtake or exceed that of men. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 76% of all HIV-positive women, where young women ages 15-24 are more than 3 times more likely to contact the virus as young men. In the Caribbean, 51% of people living with AIDS are women. In Asia, female infection has reached the rate of 30%.
Experts maintain that the growing gender imbalance is related to issues of prevention and treatment. During the last decade, the infection amongst women has spread from urban sex trade workers to rural populations, where women have less access to information and preventative measures. Women unknowingly infect their children and other family members during pregnancy or through the processes of daily living. While women's biology puts them at greater risk for HIV than men, social factors play a large part in prevention and treatment. Illiteracy is a barrier for information about prevention and health care. Infected women are often reluctant to seek help due to stigmatized, ostracized and possible face violence at the hands of their community. They may be primary breadwinners and lengthy trips to care facilities and costly drugs may interfere with day to day subsistence. So, they avoid care services or limit antiretroviral therapy to times of pregnancy. In such cases, the premature death of an HIV-positive mother leaves children destitute.
The spread of HIV is linked to the cycle of poverty women in developing nations face and requires a multi-sector approach to dealing with the pandemic. Initiatives to develop home-based or community industries that can be run young and old alike, such as raising chickens, have been successful in ensuring family income and keeping children in school. Business training for women assists in building operational structures into family and work life so that processes run more smoothly despite a mother's failing health. Better access to education and health care continues to be vital to prevention and treatment. Higher literacy rates, more healthcare centres, and cheaper drugs for the 40 million inflected people worldwide are part of the solution. Controlling pregnancy and the spread of HIV through use of the female condom, the only inexpensive, effective, woman-implemented barrier method available, is also important.
According to Dr. Paul Zeitz of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, effective prevention and treatment is depends on the G8 meeting their financial commitments to fighting AIDS. To date, all countries, excluding France continue to fall short in their financial contributions. This is just one of the many issues that will be addressed in the XVI International Aids conference this week.
