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Women's rights top in global AIDS battle

    JOHANNESBURG

    An international AIDS NGO has announced plans to put women's rights at the centre of its new initiative to curb the spread HIV/AIDS.

    At the recent launch of its "Women's Leadership Initiative", the Washington-based International AIDS Trust said women were fast becoming the new face of HIV/AIDS in the hardest hit regions of the world.

    "Women have moved from the periphery of this epidemic to the heart of it in less than a decade," president of the Trust, Sandra Thurman, said in a statement.

    In 2000, women comprised 50 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS worldwide for the first time since the pandemic began more than 20 years ago.

    "If current trends continue we'll see a larger percentage of women infected and affected. Unless we address these fundamental gender issues, we won't be able to do anything about the HIV/AIDS epidemic," Thurman added.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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