Global Coalition on Women and AIDS Tours United States to Raise Awareness of Disease

The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS is touring five U.S. cities -- New York City, Nashville, Chicago, Miami and Washington, D.C. -- to promote education and awareness about the "rapid" spread of HIV among women, the Miami Herald reports (Tasker, Miami Herald, 3/6). The "Empower Women, Save Lives: Women and AIDS U.S. Tour" will promote increasing girls' access to education, reducing violence against women, providing increased economic opportunities for women, protecting women's property and inheritance rights and ensuring access to female-controlled contraceptive methods, according to a GCWA release. The group, launched by UNAIDS, will target businesses, foundations, advocacy groups, religious leaders, academics, the entertainment industry and the media to promote partnerships between local and global communities that would provide prevention, care and treatment for women and girls. "The tour brings together inspiring women to highlight the impact of AIDS on women globally," Dr. Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, said, adding, "Efforts to reach women and girls are a good start but not nearly enough. In many parts of the world, women not only lack information, but also the social and economic options they need to keep themselves and their families safe from AIDS." For the tour, GCWA has partnered with the MAC AIDS Fund, the United Nations Foundation, World Vision, the International Center for Research on Women and the American Foundation for AIDS Research (GCWA release, 3/1). "A decade ago, less than one-third of the world's HIV/AIDS patients were women; now it's more than half. In parts of Africa and the Caribbean, 75% of the new HIV cases in the 15 to 30 age group are in young women," Cravero said, adding, "It makes young women an endangered species in these areas" (Miami Herald, 3/6).

A kaisernetwork.org HealthCast of an "Empower Women, Save Lives" congressional briefing scheduled for Tuesday, March 8 will be available online after 12 p.m. ET on March 9.

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