Increasing Number of Women Affected by HIV/AIDS Should Elicit ‘Rapid, Constructive Response,’ Editorial Says
The number of women living with HIV/AIDS has "skyrocketed" compared with the number of people contracting HIV through injection drug use or homosexual contact -- a "trend [that] should prompt a rapid and constructive response," a Winston-Salem Journal editorial says. Increasing HIV/AIDS prevalence among women "means increasing numbers of women passing the virus to their children," and as more women die from AIDS-related complications, there are more AIDS orphans "growing up -- if at all -- in poverty and ill health," the editorial says. According to the Journal, "[l]ong-range solutions" in the United States and elsewhere "must include better education, health care and political equality for women." Because "[c]onservative attitudes that condemn the victim rather than the disease only make matters worse," it is "imperative to make sure that AIDS education focuses on women as well as men," the editorial says. The Journal concludes that the "news that AIDS is increasingly infecting women should not be just another dry tidbit to shrug over. With women -- and children -- increasingly at risk, it is imperative to emphasize education, treatment and prevention" (Winston-Salem Journal, 3/18).
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