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Women and HIV

A Look at the Numbers – Courtesy of the Well Project, a blog dedicated to women living with HIV/Aids. http://www.thewellproject.org/

Over two and a half decades have passed since the first diagnosis of AIDS in America. While there were a handful of women among the first cases, AIDS was thought to primarily affect gay men. As the years passed, women began to emerge as the changing face of AIDS. The proportion of HIV and AIDS cases among women has more than tripled from 7% in 1985 to an alarming 26% in 2008. In 2008, The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately 280,000 women were living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

However, women remain undiagnosed, or not in care, and UNAIDS (Uniting the world against AIDS) estimates that between 14.2 and 16.9 million women were living with HIV worldwide in 2007, accounting for half of the estimated 33 million HIV-positive people.

HIV has hit the African-American and Hispanic communities particularly hard. Women in these communities make up a combined 25% of the U.S. female population, yet accounted for 82% of all female HIV/AIDS cases in the U.S. in 2006. An increase in HIV diagnoses has also been seen in older women (45 and older.)

For women in the U.S., high-risk heterosexual contact is clearly the most prevalent mode of transmission: 32% of new HIV infections in the U.S. are acquired through heterosexual contact, while 18% of those newly infected were exposed through injection drug use. Heterosexual intercourse is also the primary source of HIV transmission for women in many other countries in Africa, South America, and Western Europe.

Did You Know?

• AIDS is the number one cause of death for African American women aged 25 -34


• About 10% of AIDS cases in the US female population are in women older than 50


• Seven of ten states with the highest AIDS cases among women are located in the South


• Among teenagers 13 to 19, girls account for over half of new HIV infections


• Every 29 seconds a women dies from an AIDS related illness
  

Ladies, love yourself first and GET TESTED! Click on the link below to find a location near you.
http://www.hivtest.org/

Stiletto,
Real Life, Real Talk, Real Women