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  • Title: [Women and AIDS in Africa].
    Author: Coll Seck AM.
    Journal: Vie Sante; 1990 Oct; (5):19-20. PubMed ID: 12342922.
    Abstract:
    The theme of "World Aids Day" for 1990 was "Women and AIDS." This theme was chosen because of the devastating effects AIDS has on women. The World Health Organization's (WHO) latest figures state that women represent 1/3 of the estimated 6 million people infected with AIDS worldwide. The majority of these women are in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the Caribbean. The outcomes of a recent study done in a Central African country showed that women were 4 times more susceptible to getting AIDS than men, in spite of the fact that there are more men than women in this area of SSA. The reasons that women are so vulnerable are multiple: illiteracy, lack of access to information, prejudices, sexual taboos, and an economic dependency which have all led women towards prostitution and the growing incidence of hetero sexual transmission of AIDS in SSA. Prostitutes are 88% seropositive in Kigali; 16% in Dakar and 90% in Nairobi. 10% of all AIDS cases in SSA are due to transfusions where the blood banks are not monitored because women are loosing large quantities of blood through abortions, hemorrhages, deliveries and chronic anemia due to continuous pregnancies that are badly spaced. Additional problems for women are transmitting AIDS to their babies -- 25-30% of pediatric AIDS are transmitted from mother to child through "vertical transmission (VT)." This VT is a serious problem in East Africa where a survey in Uganda showed that 24% of pregnant women were infected with AIDS. The WHO estimated that between 1980-1987, 80,000 children were infected with AIDS of which 80% died before age 5. AIDS in SSA is taking its toll on women who face environmental, socio-cultural, political and economic discrimination. Such a loss to AIDS to incalculable to society.
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