March 10, 2009

Today Is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

The fourth annual National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day aims to call attention to HIV/AIDS-related issues that are unique to women and girls, which represent a quarter of all new HIV infections in the United States and half of the estimated 33 million people living with the virus around the globe. The awareness day is commemorated yearly on March 10.

According to the National Institutes of Health, about 278,000 women and adolescent girls are living with the virus in the United States; 80 percent of them are minorities. African-American women contract the virus at nearly 15 times the rate of their white counterparts, and although they represent only 13 percent of the female population they account for 65 percent of all American women living with HIV. Latinas contract the virus at nearly four times the rate of white women.

“It is critical that women and adolescent girls learn the HIV status of their male sexual partners and regularly monitor their own infection status,” says Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I encourage women and adolescent girls to embrace routine HIV testing, to learn the HIV status of their sexual partners when possible and to employ safe-sex practices.”

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