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Special focus on women during UN Meeting

    JOHANNESBURG

    A UN High Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS in New York this week will be taking stock of global efforts against HIV/AIDS, with a special focus on women.

    Although infection rates have been falling in parts of Africa, the growing number of women and girls affected by the pandemic is still a chief concern, and experts are demanding that appropriate prevention and treatment efforts be more seriously focused on them.

    Health and development organisations are also demanding that HIV prevention and treatment campaigns be linked to reproductive health efforts.

    International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) president Adrienne Germain told reporters ahead of the meeting's opening session: "Twenty-five years into this pandemic, it is having a disproportionate impact on girls and women. We need to change our policies and budgets to reflect this evolution."

    According to IWHC, young women were particularly at risk of HIV infection - 62 percent of all HIV-positive people aged 15-24 worldwide are female, but in sub-Saharan Africa this figure reaches staggering 75 percent.

    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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