About 50 girls under 19 infected with HIV every hour, says Unicef
The spread among adolescent girls is fueled by early sex, including with older men; forced sex; poverty; and lack of access to counseling and testing services
London — Teenagers, and particularly girls, are bearing the brunt of the global AIDS epidemic with about 30 adolescents becoming infected with HIV every hour, according to a report by the UNs children’s fund Unicef. Of those 30 new infections each hour among 15 to 19 year-olds in 2017, about 20 — or two-thirds — were in girls, Unicef said, representing a "crisis of health as well as a crisis of agency". While there has been substantial progress in the fight against AIDS in the last two decades, the failure to prevent so many new infections among children and teenagers is slowing this down, the report said. It said the epidemic’s spread among adolescent girls is being fueled by early sex, including with older men; forced sex; powerlessness in negotiating around sex; poverty; and lack of access to confidential counseling and testing services. "In most countries, women and girls lack access to information, to services, or even just the power to say no to unsafe sex," said Henrietta For...
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