| HEALTH STATUS - Morbidity |
44 |
Although Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was primarily diagnosed in men in the early 1980s, by the 1990s the disease had become prevalent in women. In 1993, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded the definition of an AIDS case to include persons with severe immunosupression, pulmonary tuberculosis, recurrent pneumonia, or invasive cervical cancer.(1) This had the effect of greatly increasing the number of reported AIDS cases among women.
In 2000, there were 10,459 AIDS cases among U.S. females aged 13 years and older attributed to three major exposure categories: heterosexual contact, injecting drug use, and undetermined modes of transmission. The plurality (38 percent) of these women were exposed through heterosexual contact. However, between 1995 and 2000, the number of AIDS cases from heterosexual exposure in females dropped by 28 percent, from 5,515 AIDS cases in 1995 to 3,981 cases in 2000. AIDS cases attributable to injection drug use in women also declined by 52 percent over this period, from 5,404 to 2,609 cases.
AIDS cases due to heterosexual contact and injecting drug use were highest among Black women in 2000 (2,449 and 1,468 cases, respectively), representing 62 percent of all AIDS cases in women attributable to heterosexual contact and 56 percent of AIDS cases among women attributable to injecting drug use.
1 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1993. Impact of the Expanded AIDS Surveillance Case Definition on AIDS Case Reporting — United States, First Quarter, 1993. MMWR, April 30, 1993. 42(16); 308-310.
