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Incidence of women getting HIV
#66455 - 06/29/03 09:51 AM
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December 3, 2002
National News
Report: Women's HIV Risk From Heterosexual Sex Rises in Massachusetts
Boston Herald
12.02.02; Michael Lasalandra
Heterosexual sex has passed intravenous drug use as the primary way women in Massachusetts are being infected with HIV, according to a state Department of Public Health report released Monday. Since 1999, when the MDPH started tracking HIV cases, more women have been getting infected through sex than drug use. According to the data, the number of women getting HIV from sexual partners not known to have risk factors for the disease has risen to more than 40 percent of all cases among females, while those getting infected as a result of IV drug use has dropped to about 20 percent. Almost 30 percent were infected through sex with partners with known risk factors.
Jean Maguire, director of MDPH's AIDS bureau, said the data are troubling because officials are not sure of the best way to reach heterosexual women with the safe sex message. In the past, efforts have been geared toward reaching gay men and intravenous drug users, the groups that made up most HIV/AIDS cases.
Black women make up almost half of women newly diagnosed with HIV in the state, and Hispanic women are represented disproportionately to their population. Contributing to these numbers is an increase in reported cases among women born outside the United States, the report notes.
Among men, gays represent an increasing number of new HIV cases; male infections from IV drug use have dropped. In 2001, 34 percent of new AIDS cases were among gays, up from 30 percent the year before. Twenty-nine percent were among IV drug users, down from 34 percent in 2000.
The report also shows a 6 percent increase in the number of Massachusetts residents living with HIV/AIDS -- indicating an increase in new cases and more people living longer with the disease. Some 7,600 men and women are living with AIDS in Massachusetts; another 6,000 more having been diagnosed with HIV. Officials estimate that another 7,000 more have HIV and do not yet know it.
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More AIDS Cases with Female Faces"
Philadelphia Inquirer (06.30.03)::Marie McCullough
In Philadelphia, HIV/AIDS is increasingly a disease of
women, especially black and Hispanic women. Many newly diagnosed patients are heterosexual minority women who are not promiscuous, not injecting drugs, and - because of cultural biases - not likely to question their partner's sexual orientation or insist on condoms.
In 2001, new AIDS patients who got the disease through
heterosexual sex (329 cases) for the first time outnumbered those who got it through male homosexual sex (207 cases) or infected needles (308 cases). In fact, heterosexual sex was the only transmission method that saw an increase in AIDS cases in 2001.
About 30 percent of the 865 new AIDS cases in the city in 2001 were women, compared with 12 percent in 1990. In Philadelphia, blacks and Hispanics account for 75 percent of AIDS cases, but only 50 percent of the population.
"In most Latino and African-American communities... religion still says that homosexuality is a sin," said Ednita M. Wright, assistant dean of students at Cornell University and coauthor of "African American Women and HIV/AIDS: Critical Responses." "And it reflects on me as a woman: Not only is my man cheating on me, but he's cheating with a man." The stigma runs so deep that some
African-American bisexual men identify themselves as
heterosexual, with the tacit approval of their female partners.
Studies also find that Latinas are unlikely to insist on "safe sex" because of cultural factors, notably machismo and Catholic opposition to birth control.
"Traditionally, heterosexuals did not see themselves at high risk, so they might not be tested" for HIV, said Kathleen Brady, HIV epidemiologist in the Philadelphia's Department of Public Health. This year, city prevention workers in a federal pilot project will try "to reach high-risk heterosexuals to define who they are and where to find them," said Brady.
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