(UNAIDS Biennial Repor): A Pandemic Within the Pandemic

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

http://allafrica.com/stories/200407120001.html

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Every UNAIDS Biennial Report invariably contains riveting items of revelation. For me, this year's report, issued but a few days ago in conjunction with the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, is no exception. The revelation, which I found to be both startling and terrifying, is that in Africa, 75% of all those infected, between 15 and 24 years of age, are young women and girls.

I well recall two years ago in Barcelona. At the time, the UNAIDS report, and a monograph released by UNICEF, put the percentage at roughly two-thirds of 15-24 year olds. That we should now be dealing with 75% is almost beyond belief. Everyone knows of the higher rates of infection of young women and girls over young men and boys, but that the ratio should have reached 75% surpasses understanding.

The absolute figures are shocking. According to the latest statistics, there are 6.2 million people between the ages of 15 and 24 infected in Africa. It means that 4 million, 650 thousand women and girls of that age are now living with the virus. But that's just the tip of the contagion. The report also says that young people account for more than half of all HIV infections world-wide; more than 6,000 contract the virus every day. Those numbers would obviously be higher for Africa, but even at the six thousand figure level, the evidence suggests that well over a million young women and girls, between 15 and 24, are being newly-infected annually.

This is the true nightmare intersection of youth and gender which the current report reveals. Neither Dante nor Kafka have penned so bleak a landscape. We're losing huge numbers of young women and girls in Africa. It's a pandemic within the pandemic.
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[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

1. Kick

:kick:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. Anyone?

*chirp* *chirp* *chirp*