HIV/AIDS leading cause of death among women ages 15-44, WHO study shows

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Nov 11 2009

In follow-up coverage to the WHO's report on women's health, several news outlets examine the impact HIV/AIDS is having on women around the world. "In its first study of women's health, the World Health Organization said yesterday that the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44," the Associated Press/Boston Globe reports (11/10).

"Unsafe sex is the greatest risk factor for HIV among women of childbearing age in the developing world, causing one in five deaths among women in this age group, the U.N. agency said," the Daily Mail reports. "Other important contributers include a lack of access to contraceptives and a shortage of iron, the WHO said" (Thornhill, 11/9).

"Women who do not know how to protect themselves from such infections or who are unable to do so face increased risks of death or illness," as do "those who cannot protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy or control their fertility because of lack of access to contraception," the WHO said its 91-page report, the AP/Boston Globe writes (11/10).

The Los Angeles Times' blog "Booster Shots" also examines the WHO report on women and includes comments by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (Dennis, 11/9).

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.