From:    Kirsten Emmott
To:      All                                    Msg #50, 11:13pm Jan-23-91
Subject: women and aids


from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Nov. 30 1990:

"....AIDS cases in women account for an increasing proportion of
all AIDS cases in the United States.  By the end of 1990, reports to Center
for Disease Control of AIDS cases among women will exceed 15,000.  From
Nov. 1989 through October 1990, women accounted for 11% of all reported
cases in adults; from 1988 to 1989, diagnosed cases increased by 29% in
women, compared with 18% in men.  By 1987, AIDS was the eighth leading
cause of death in women aged 15-44 years; based on current trends, AIDS
will be among the five leading causes of death in this population in 1991.

	 "HIV infection disproportionately affects women in racial/ethnic
minority groups. Although black and Hispanic women constitute  19% of all US
women, they represent 72% of all US women diagnosed with AIDS. In 1988,
the death rate from HIV infection was nine times higher for black than for
white women. These disproportionate rates largely reflect the occurence
of HIV infection among injecting drug users and their sex partners.

"....Among all cases of AIDS in women, 88% occurred among women of
child bearing age (15-44 years).  Approximately one fourth of these women
were 20-29 years of age at the time of diagnosis; many were probably
infected as teenagers.

	 "Editorial  note: many women in the US are unaware that they
are at risk for HV infection,....(they) often remain undiagnoses until the
onset of AIDS or until a perinatally infected child becomes ill."

 comment: women with AIDS get sick differently from men.  They almost
never get Kaposi`s sarcoma, for example.  They often present with very bad
vaginal infections and pelvic inflammatory disease.  HIV infected women
also have a lot of abnormal Pap smears. The presence of cervical dysplasia
was 8-11 times higher in HIV infected women, according to two studies in
the same issue of MMWR.  Cervix dysplasia may be related to viral
infection, which of course might be more severe in HIV-infected women; or
there might be other explanations, such as number of sex partners, smoking
cigarettes, etc. in those populations.

	Any women of colour on the echo?

  Incidentally, the incidence of AIDS in Canada has fallen this year.