JOHANNESBURG, July 6 (AFP) - Women are the number one target of AIDS in Africa, facing a greater risk of infection than men and many contracting HIV in their teen years when they start having sex, UN agencies said Tuesday.
"Nowhere is the epidemic's 'feminisation' more apparent than in sub-Saharan Africa, where 57 percent of adults infected are women and 75 percent of young people infected are women and girls," said the UN's 2004 Global Report on AIDS.
Separately, the UN children's agency UNICEF said teenage girls in southern Africa become infected with HIV almost as soon as they start having sex.
Teenage girls were easier to coerce into having sex, said UNICEF director Carol Bellamy, while in many places in Africa a traditional belief existed that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS.
"The result is that girls run a much higher risk of infection," said Bellamy.
"A study showed one out of five of the girls surveyed became HIV positive within a year of losing their virginity," she said.
One of the key issues in the spread of the disease in the hardest hit region in the world, southern Africa, was what Bellamy referred to as "inter-generational sex".
"Inter-generational sex is a major engine of the the pandemic. It tends to involve men and girls who are typically five to seven years younger," said Bellamy, speaking via a videolink from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
She said: "In other words in many cases the men are in their early twenties and the girls are young teens -- this is not the sole pattern but a pattern we see over and over again."
While women living with HIV were vastly outnumbered by men in the early years of the epidemic, "today, there are, on average, 13 infected women for every 10 infected men -- up from 12 infected women for every 10 infected men in 2002," the report said.
The difference in infection levels between women and men is even sharper among young people aged 15 to 24. The ratio ranges from 20 women for every 10 men infected in South Africa to 45 women for every 10 men in Kenya and Mali.
Africa's male-dominated culture means that women are the carers and guardians of family life, with many in poor rural communities spending their days cleaning, washing clothes, fetching wood and water, and cooking.
"This means they bear the largest AIDS burden," said the report.
"Families may withdraw young girls from school to care for ill family members with HIV. Older women often shoulder the burden of care when their adult children fall ill."
Women widowed by AIDS may lose their land and property after their husbands die due to the lack of laws protecting their inheritance rights.
The report called for action, including the establishment of community safety-net programmes and other initiatives to empower women.
It said the impact of AIDS on households could be "especially severe when the infected individual is an adult woman."
"In societies defined by extensive labour migration systems -- including many of those hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic in southern Africa -- women head the majority of households, especially in rural areas."
"In Manicaland, Zimbabwe, when a woman died from AIDS, in two out of three cases households dissolved," the report said.
The number of AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa has shot up from 9.6 million in 2001 to 12.1 million in 2003, the report said.
040706
AF040744
©AFP 2004.. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, Bridgestone Firestone Trust Fund and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2004. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2004 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
