National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

March 10, 2006

March 10, 2006, is the first annual National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Sponsored by the Office of Women’s Health, this is a day to raise awareness among women and girls about HIV/AIDS, to stress the importance of knowing your HIV status, and to promote healthy behaviors that reduce the risk of HIV infection. Although the number of people diagnosed with AIDS in the U.S. each year has decreased by 50% over the past two decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the yearly incidence of AIDS in women has increased at a menacing rate. (See Table 1 ).

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has grown into a formidable health threat to women in the U.S., particularly young women and women of color. According to the CDC’s 2004 Surveillance Report of Cases of HIV Infection and AIDS in the United States, there were 42,514 new AIDS cases reported in 2004. Of those new AIDS cases, 11,442 (27%) were in women. In 2004, of all estimated cases of AIDS in U.S. women, an estimated 82 percent of these new cases were in African-American (67%) and Hispanic (15%) women. (See Table 2 ).

The following links are resources related to National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, including information on HIV/AIDS in women and girls, HIV prevention, clinical trials and more. We hope you find this page helpful in your efforts to educate, motivate, and mobilize your community in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Sites
	Office of Minority Health: Observance Materials
	Office of Minority Health: List of Events by State
Information on HIV in Women and Girls
	The Office of Women’s Health: Strategies to Address HIV/AIDS in Women
	Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA): A Guide to the Clinical Care of Women with HIV/AIDS
	Information on HRSA HIV-Related Activities
	NIH Plan for HIV-Related Research : Women &Girls
AIDSinfo Resources for Women
Women and HIV information:
	Collection of links related to women and HIV
	Recommendations for Use of Antiretroviral Drugs in Pregnant HIV-1-Infected Women for Maternal Health and Interventions to Reduce Perinatal HIV-1 Transmission in the United States
Fact Sheets relating to pregnancy and HIV:
	HIV During Pregnancy, series of fact sheets for women who are HIV positive and have questions regarding pregnancy
	HIV and Pregnancy, discusses treatment to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV
Microbicide research:
	Information on investigational drugs being studied to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
	National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Information on past, ongoing and future microbicide research from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases
	NIH Plan for HIV-Related Research : Microbicides
Clinical trial Information:
	Trials researching methods to prevent HIV infection/transmission
	HIV/AIDS trials recruiting women
	HIV/AIDS trials recruiting adolescents and/or young women
HIV Prevention Information
	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: HIV among Women
	National Women's Health Information Center: Prevent HIV fact sheet
General Health Information for Women’s and Girl’s
	National Women’s Health Information Center: (Office on Women's Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
	NIH Office of Research on Women's Health

Table 1: This graph shows the incidence of AIDS among women for the years 1988, 1994 and 2004. The number of women diagnosed with AIDS compared to the total (men and women) has been steadily increasing over the past two decades.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Surveillance Report .

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Table 2: This graph shows the incidence of AIDS among women by ethnicity. Black and Hispanic women account for the greatest number of AIDS cases; the prevalence of Black and Hispanic women diagnosed with AIDS has been consistently increasing over the past two decades.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Surveillance Report .

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