Half of adults with HIV are women
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted: 7:49 PM EST (0049 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Women make up nearly half of the 37.2 million adults living with HIV and in sub-Saharan Africa the proportion rises to almost 60 percent, according to a U.N. report released on Tuesday.
"Increasingly the face of AIDS is young and female," said Dr. Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
In every region of the globe, the number of women infected with the deadly virus has risen during the past two years. East Asia had the highest jump with 56 percent, followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia with 48 percent.