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Women and the Risk of HIV/AIDS

© Gretchen Malik

Today the message that women are vulnerable to AIDS is still not widespread in the U.S., where many women believe they are not in a "risk category." Yet the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the illnesses and infections that make up acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is currently the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 25-44 and the sixth-leading cause of death for all American women in this age group. Most women learn about their infection through a test, but many are not even aware they have HIV until they become ill.

According to the Office of Women's Health, most women don't even know they have HIV until they get an opportunistic infection, and then they've got full blown AIDS. So many women who are now dead didn't have a clue. They thought they weren't in a risk category. Unprotected sex is a major risk for women. But it's also the way that you have babies. Women need to ask a lot more questions of their partners.

Condoms are extremely effective in protecting against the transmission of HIV, and yet the virus is still spreading through unprotected sex. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) most American women with HIV were infected by having unprotected sex with an infected injection drug user, while about one-quarter contracted the virus by sharing needles with an infected injection drug user.

The percentage of AIDS cases among American females has more than tripled in 13 years, from 7 percent in 1985 to 23 percent in 1998. African-American and Hispanic women have been hit hardest, accounting for over three-fourths of the AIDS cases in the U.S. although they account for less than one-fourth of all U.S. women.

The gay community has done a good job of promoting the use of condoms, with older men teaching younger men about safe sex. That's missing in heterosexual relationships, where heterosexual men feel they're not in a risk category. The risk is also there for monogamous women. According to CDC, the most common ways HIV is transmitted are:

Through sexual intercourse (vaginal, anal, or oral) with an HIV-infected person By sharing needles or injection equipment with an HIV-infected injection drug user To babies from HIV-infected women before or during birth, or through breast-feeding

Worldwide, vaginal intercourse is the most common way HIV is transmitted. Scientists have explored whether women are more likely to get HIV than a man when directly exposed, but studies show that the risk for direct exposure is the same for males and females. Nevertheless, because women are generally more vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases than men they are also more vulnerable to HIV.

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