World AIDS Vaccine Day is a day to raise awareness on the continued need for a vaccine to stop HIV and end AIDS.
- Globally, women are increasingly affected by HIV. 17.3 million of adults living with AIDS are women — almost half of the total of 38.6 million. That number has increased in every region in the world over the past two years.1
- Each day, 1800 children worldwide become infected with HIV — the vast majority of them newborns. In 2005, 9% of pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries were offered services to prevent transmission to their newborns.2
- Currently, children under 15 account for one in six AIDs-related deaths worldwide and one in seven new HIV infections — mostly through mother-to-child transmission.3
- A study in India found that while nearly 90% of HIV-positive women were infected by their husbands, they faced more stigma and discrimination than men.4
How does Women and Children First's work relate to HIV/AIDS?
Women are more vulnerable to HIV infection than men due to an intricate web of social, cultural, economic and physiological factors . They are, for biological reasons, more likely to become infected upon exposure to HIV. Women in many cultures may also lack the power to control condom use or otherwise negotiate the terms of their sexual relations with men. In other words, women are frequently put at risk of HIV infection not by their own choices but by prevailing social norms and the behavior of partners. The womens groups, set up by Women and Children First (UK), address these fundemental issues.
There is a real need for HIV prevention tools that can be initiated or controlled by women, such as preventive AIDS vaccines and microbicides. If such tools were available, women would no longer depend on male cooperation to protect themselves from HIV infection. They would, for instance, be able to use a vaccine or microbicide with or without their partners’ awareness or cooperation.
Vaccines have altered the course of human history. They have eradicated smallpox from the planet and polio from most countries. More than 20 fatal diseases can now be prevented by vaccines. We must add AIDS to this list.
On World AIDS Vaccine Day, May 18 2009, we ask leaders and members of governments, civil society and communities worldwide to continue to support the development of an AIDS vaccine.
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1 2004 WHO: Women and AIDS: have you heard us today?
2 UNAIDS Global Facts and Figures Fact Sheet
3 2006 Report on the Global Aids Epidemic, page 91. UNCEF, UNAIDS, UNAID Children on the Brink 2004
4 2006 Report on the Global Aids Epidemic, page 90.
