Saving Women’s Lives – A Growing Focus on

Women and HIV/AIDS

Recent years have witnessed an acceleration in the number of HIV/AIDS cases involving women.  Where women once accounted for less than 40 percent of all cases, by the end of 2000, women as a percentage of all HIV/AIDS infected adults reached 47 percent.  Accordingly, there is increasingly attention to the special gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS crisis – which include everything from women’s low social status in many nations to the importance of basic education and continued research on women-controlled methods of guarding against sexually transmitted infections like HIV. 

At the Global Health Council’s 28^th Annual Conference

(May 29-June 1), 1500 health and development professionals will focus on “Health Women: Healthy World – Challenges for the Future.”   According to the Council, “women and their families are deeply affected by the realities of globalization, by access to health and educational services driven by macro-economic policies, and by empowerment and rights issues driven by political forces. The effects of natural disasters, wars and other forms of violence can have a profound effect. Growing commercial threats to health, such as tobacco use, call for our attention as women and children become targets of marketing of deadly products.”

At the conference, participants will explore the forces shaping these issues around the world.  In addition, they will measure progress and compare experiences in implementing the major world agreements reached at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.