Girls more at risk from HIV-AIDS

GIRLS IN the 10-to-19 age group have three times higher risk than boys their age of becoming infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection which leads to AIDS, according to Dr. Yitades Gebre, director of the Ministry of Health's National STD/AIDS Control Programme.

"This is as a result of the sexual exposure of young girls to older infected men," he told The Gleaner.

Figures from the ministry's Health Promotion and Protection Division's newsletter, "EPI NEWS" on the cumulative number of reported Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) cases, reveal that from 1982 to 1999, 54 girls compared to 19 boys, had contracted AIDS.

The ministry, through its National HIV/ STD Prevention and Control Programme's newsletter "Facts and Figures", and Dr. Gebre, warned that although the 10-to-19 age group represented only two per cent of about 4,196 reported cases of AIDS in Jamaica since 1982, reported cases of new HIV infections in adolescents have doubled each year since 1995.

He pointed out that the situation existed inspite of the 10-to-19 age group's high awareness of HIV/AIDS (96 per cent). Ninety per cent of persons in this age group were also aware of condom-use and abstinence as methods of preventing the spread of HIV and 70 per cent said they knew that having sex with one partner was a better option.

He said, however, that fewer young people in this age group knew about other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs).

Dr. Gebre explained that the number of new HIV cases among adolescents may start to decline in the next two years because the ministry was embarking on a special project to address the reproductive health needs of this group. The project would include promoting youth-friendly services offered by youth organisations, institutions, communities and non-governmental organisations.

In addition, the Ministry of Health with the financial assistance of the US Agency for International Development and the Government of Jamaica would continue to educate youth about abstinence and other methods of preventing HIV and STDs through schools and community peer educators.

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