HOW HIV AFFECTS WOMEN


Infection
Women may at greater risk of being infected with HIV during sex because the fragile tissues if the vagina can tear slightly during sex and let the virus enter the body. The vagina also has a high surface area that can be exposed to the virus, thus increasing risk of infection. Similarly anal tissues are also fragile and prone to tearing slightly during sex. Women are at higher risk of infection via alnal sex than vaginal sex with an infected man. Forced sex, trasactional sex and marriage to much older men increases women's risk of infection in many places in the world.
Having multiple sex partners can also increase the risk of exposure to the virus that causes the disease. Injection drugs is another way HIV can be acquired bu women.

Signs and symptoms of HIV/AIDS in women
1.Vaginal yeast infection
The infections can be morr severe and difficult to treat in women with HIV infection than in other women. Yeast infection can also be chronic in women with HIV, which means that the infection is long lasting or keeps coming back.
2. Pelvic inflammatory disease
This infection of the female reproductive system may be more frequent and severe in women with HIV infections.
3. Human papilloma-virus (HIV) infections
HPV causes genital warts and lead to some cancers, especially cancer of the cervix. HPV infections may be more likely to cause warts or precancerous changes in the cervix in HIV infected women that in HIV uninfected women.
       MOTHER-TO-CHILD TRANSMISSION
Women who have HIV can pass the infection to their children during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. For this reason, pregnant women who are HIV infected need to take extra steps to protect thier children from infection. These steps include taking anti-HIV drugs and formula feeding their children. Using contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancy is another method to prevent transmission of the virus, and its very effective and inexpensive.
SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

IMPORTANCE OF SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
The importance of Sexual and Reproductive Health across all eight Millennium Development
 Goals Goal 1: Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
• High fertility levels contribute directly to poverty, reducing women’s opportunities, diluting expenditure on children’s education and health, precluding savings, and increasing vulnerability and insecurity.
• In developing countries, 25-40% of economic growth is attributable to the effects of declining fertility and decreased mortality.
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Girls in developing countries are often pulled out of school to care for siblings and by early marriage and pregnancy.
• Girls in small families are less likely to drop out of school due to their mother’s pregnancy, or to be pulled out due to the costs of schooling or the indirect costs of foregone household labor if a child attends school.
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Guaranteeing sexual and reproductive health and rights ensures that girls and women lead longer and healthier lives.
• When encouraged and provided with opportunities, men seek out reproductive healthcare, thus increasing the possibility for better health outcome for themselves, their partners, and families.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Maternal behavior and fertility are important determinants of child health and survival.
• In pregnancies spaced at least three years apart, infant mortality rates drop by 24%; and under-five mortality rates drop by 35%. Annually, pregnancy spacing could save the lives of 3 million children under age five.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Women in developing countries are more than 45 times more likely to die from pregnancy related complications than women in the developed world.
• For every woman who dies in pregnancy or childbirth, approximately 30 others (15 million women annually) suffer injuries, infection and disabilities.
• Access to and correct, consistent use of family planning and emergency obstetric care can significantly reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health would help combat HIV/AIDS by encouraging consistent and effective use of condoms; influencing sexual behavior through education, counseling and risk reduction; preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV; reducing the prevalence of STIs and helping guarantee women in malaria-endemic areas receive effective anti-malarial drug treatments during their pregnancy.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• The past century of population growth has put increasing pressure on natural resources as the scale of human needs and activities has expanded.
• By 2025, with the projected future population growth, between 2.4 and 3.2 billion people may be living in water-scarce situations.
Goal 8: Global partnerships
• Global partnership is required to provide adequate financing for the effective provision of reproductive health drugs and supplies.
• New resource estimates indicate that US $36 billion per year is needed by 2015 to provide the necessary sexual and reproductive health services around the world.
Bernard Luigili

Comments

  1. Unknown16 February 2019 at 07:01

    Women who have HIV can pass to their children during pregnancy ,birth and breast feeding and therefore they should take step to prevent their innocent children by been infected ......by Rahma

    ReplyDelete
  2. Peter2 March 2019 at 21:51

    I believe that women are at a high risk of HIV infection by which they experience many bodily fluids exchange through virginal sex,annul sex, mouth to mouth kiss and even through rape or during pregnancies through operations if not well observed. .

    ReplyDelete
  3. Peter2 March 2019 at 21:53

    Also if a mother is infected she can transmit to the unborn or through breastfeeding.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Benjamin william9 March 2019 at 21:18

    Women have high chances of getting inffected with hiv$aid since the move alot of fluid in the body

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dennis maina23 March 2019 at 14:41

    Women have high chances of getting hiv because they are more exposed to bodily fluids than men

    ReplyDelete

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