75% of HIV positive young adults in southern Africa are women

[bobbieinok]

http://archive.blackvoices.com/newswire/blackworld_article.asp?ID=866


In Southern Africa 75% of HIV Positive Youth Are Female
NewsRx.com
July 22, 2004

The laws guaranteeing equality are in place, the anti-AIDS information is out there, the girls are going to school in ever greater numbers, and yet young women in Southern Africa are becoming infected with HIV at an alarming rate.

In South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, more than 75% of HIV positive youth aged 15 to 24 are female. HIV prevalence among pregnant women average 25% in the region, but remain below 15% in East Africa and under 10% in West Africa.

....

In the context of men growing up believing masculinity means having plenty of sexual partners, being faithful to your husband does not prevent infection. Using a condom requires a willing partner, and in a region where one in five women has been physically abused, fear can undermine an insistence on protection, the task force noted.

Poverty drives girls and women into exchanging sex for goods, gifts, food, bus fare, or school fees. As a result, young women tend to have sexual partners who are 5 to 10 years older, and more likely to be infected with HIV. A study in Zambia found that 18% of girls tested HIV positive within a year of losing their virginity, said the report.

Keeping girls in schools helps them delay sex, but only if they are not having forced sex with teachers and students. Governments, schools, communities, and parents need to work together to make schools a safe place for girls, with zero tolerance for teachers who sexually harass students, urged the report.

more....

[Must_B_Free]

1. aids is man made and was purposefully spread in Africa

the gestation period is not consistent with the growth of this disease in Africa. Simply put, too many people have it to have gotten it naturally.

[vpigrad]

2. Exactly!

Even with exponential growth, there's just too many people with it for it to have been natural

[Warpy]

3. Baloney

Sorry to bust ya conspiracy bubble, but the technology was not available to create this one, still isn't.

The first known case of AIDs in the US was in 1959.

Estimates have been made by virologists at the CDC that the original jump from green monkey to human was in the 1910-1930 time frame, probably during the butchery of bush meat by people with cuts on their hands.

HIV is a PANDEMIC. If you don't know what that means, please look it up. The spread is consistent with the change in social conditions on the African continent, including the development of roads and rapid travel and the economic and social disempowerment of women through colonialism.

Please bag the stupid conspiracy theories. The truth is bad enough, that this whole thing was ignored for far too long because stupid religious people saw it as a punishment from the big spook in the sky for having sex.

[bobbieinok]

4. just your idea or do you have a link??

I've read this before