Women, AIDS, and Economic Crisis in Central Africa

Abstract

AIDS, a new lethal communicable disease syndrome, has rapidly developed into a world-wide pandemic affecting some I38 countries, including fortythree in Africa. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS is transmitted from infected persons by sexual contact, blood, and vertically from mother to foetus. In Central Africa, where infection occurs primarily as a result of heterosexual intercourse with an infected partner, women tend to predominate among both HIV-infected (seropositive) persons and identified AIDS cases.1 Eight to thirty per cent of sexually active adults in some cities were reported to be HIV-infected in 1988. Although infection is not confined to special risk groups, rates are higher in selected subsets of the population particularly prostitutes, their clients, and others with multiple sexual partners. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), especially those with open sores, increase chances of HIV infection. Other endemic diseases that are known to activate or weaken the immune system may result in increased susceptibility to HIV infection or to disease in exposed persons. Since most of those infected will eventually progress to fatal disease, the future health and survival of millions are compromised. In Kinshasa, a city of more than three million inhabitants, those already infected may number as many as 150 ooo. Estimated as affecting eight to ten percent of adults in 1986, infection is growing at more than one percent a year. AIDS deaths will not only strain health resources and add to economic hardship;

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