HIV/AIDS epidemic a growing threat to world population. (cover story)

CONFERENCES & conventions; HIV; AIDS; HIV infections; WOMEN'S health

BANGKOK (Thailand); THAILANDReport Available

Almost 20,000 people attended the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, July 11 to 16, 2004 to discuss the numerous fronts in the battle with HIV/MDS, most of which continue to worsen as infection rates keep rising. According to the 2004 Report on the global AIDS epidemic, about 40 million people around the world are now living with HIV, with almost 5 million people acquiring the virus in 2003. Women are increasingly becoming the face of HIV, accounting for about half of all HIV infections globally and 57 percent of infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Women were the focus of Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis, a report released by a host of United Nations agencies during the Bangkok conference. The report emphasized that curtailing HIV's spread cannot be accomplished without addressing women's rights, including reproductive rights, and gender-based violence. Uganda has been quite successful in reducing HIV infection rates through efforts that include encouraging teenagers not to have sex, according to the World Health Organization. In Uganda's capital of Kampala, HIV infection among pregnant women fell from 31 percent in 1993 to 14 percent in 1998 while rates for pregnant women younger than 20 beyond Kampala dropped from 21 percent in 1990 to 8 percent in 1998.