Young Girls Twice as Likely to Contract HIV Than Boys: Report
Young Girls Twice as Likely to Contract HIV Than Boys: Report
Young Girls Twice as Likely to Contract HIV Than Boys: Report
Teenage girls are bearing the brunt of the global HIV burden, according to a new UNICEF report.
The report, published earlier this month, found that girls between ages 10 and 19 were twice as likely to contract the disease than boys within the same age group.
In total, 98,000 adolescent girls were infected with the virus in 2022, down nearly 100,000 from the total in 2010. For comparison, just over 40,000 boys in the age group were infected last year. More than half of these infections were recorded in eastern and southern Africa.
While this highlights progress for stopping the disease globally, leaders warn that girls are being left behind.
In other words men with HIV more likely to have sex with adolescent girlsCertain cultures believe sex with a virgin will cure HIV, which is horrifying.
That's not what it means.
Many STDs are more likely to be transmitted to the partner receiving penetrative sex than the one penetrating. In some cases it's as extreme as a 10:1 chance.
So while it could relate to aspects of partner selection, given what I've seen before in terms of HIV transmission rates it's probably the opposite, with young girls being less sexually active with positive partners (or in general) than young men as if they were equally active we should have expected more than a 2x increased infection rate of young girls.
Biologically it's not a 1:1 risk rate for transmission, which is an important confounding factor to consider in interpreting this result.
Edit: Actually looking at the current numbers this seems like it's equally active young men and women with almost exactly what should be expected in vaginal sex transmission rates:
No, it is exactly what it means. There’s a prevalent belief in several regions of Africa that having sex with a virgin girl will cure HIV.
So there is a massive amount of rape of young girls by HIV+ men.
Thank you
*rape
More likely to rape adolescent girls. This is an epidemic being driven by rape.
Thanks for not deleting your comment