|
|
|
HIV in
Females - in
what way it is different ?
It is estimated that by
the year 2010, fully half of all HIV-infected Americans
will be women, according to government estimates. There
are already an estimated 160,000 HIV-positive women and
teenage girls in the United States, representing 17
percent of known HIV cases in that country. But
the rate at which women are becoming newly infected has
more than tripled in the past 15 years. In US,
women currently account for 31 percent of all new HIV
infections.In the state of Florida, young women accounted
for 50 percent of new HIV infections in the 13-to-24 age
group.
It
has been found that the markers ( Viral Load, T-cells )
doctors generally use to determine progression of HIV
infection behave differently in women and people of color
as compared to white men.
- Viral
load, a measurement of how many virus particles
are in the blood stream, is lower in
women than in men infected for the same
amount of time.
- It
remains low in people of color longer
than in whites, so women of color
generally have the lowest viral loads of all.
- T-cells,
protective immune cells whose number declines
over the course of HIV infection, start out at
higher levels in healthy women, and decline
more slowly in HIV-infected women than
they do in men.
More
research is needed to determine what these differences
mean in practical terms in the treatment of women.
|
|
