Over the past 15 years, the world has seen a change in the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic. Through enormous global prevention and treatment efforts, new infections have fallen by nearly 40 percent, and increased access to treatment has enabled millions more with HIV to live productively.
But the advances we have made have not benefited everyone equally. We are still failing in one crucial area: preventing HIV infections in young women.
Women and girls become infected at disproportionately higher rates than men and boys. In sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic has taken the greatest toll, young women are twice as likely to be infected as young men. HIV robs women of their lives, children of their mothers, families of their caretakers and communities of their workforce. Around the world, nearly 2,500 women are infected by HIV every day, and it remains the leading killer of women ages 15 to 44 worldwide.
About the authors
Zeda Rosenberg
Zeda Rosenberg is CEO of IPM, a nonprofit working to develop new HIV prevention and sexual and reproductive health products for women. Previously, she served as scientific director for the HIV Prevention Trials Network at Family Health International, and senior scientist at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH. She received her master's in epidemiology and a doctorate in microbiology from Harvard University.
Sharon Hillier
Dr. Sharon Hillier is professor and vice chair for faculty affairs, and director of reproductive infectious disease research in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In addition, she is a senior investigator at the University of Pittsburgh-affiliated Magee-Womens Research Institute. As co-principal investigator of the Microbicide Trials Network funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Hillier oversees an expansive portfolio of clinical trials focused on evaluating a range of HIV prevention products for different high-risk populations.
