UNICEF HIV/AIDS STATISTICS: Adolescent Girls and Young Women are Disproportionately Affected by HIV

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Excerpt from the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Report.

“In 2014, about 2.0 million adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 were living with HIV worldwide. Adolescents account for about 5 per cent of all people living with HIV and about 12 per cent of new adult HIV infections. Regions with the highest numbers of HIV-positive adolescents are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Of the 2.0 million adolescents living with HIV, about 1.6 million (82 per cent) live in sub-Saharan Africa.

AIDS is the leading cause of death among adolescents (10-19) in Africa and the second leading cause of death among adolescents globally. AIDS-related deaths among adolescents have tripled since 2000 while decreasing among all other age groups, which can be largely attributed to a generation of children infected with HIV perinatally who are growing into adolescence without access to life-saving interventions. About half of adolescents (15-19) living with HIV are in just six countries: South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Mozambique and Tanzania. Every hour, 26 adolescents (15-19) were newly infected with HIV in 2014 (220,000 total).

Adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately affected by HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in countries with high HIV prevalence. In sub-Saharan Africa, 7 in 10 new infections in 15-19 year olds are among girls. To compound this, most recent data indicate that only 11 per cent of adolescents aged 15-19 in sub-Saharan Africa have been tested for HIV in the past...”

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See more at: http://data.unicef.org/hiv-aids/adolescents-young-people.html#sthash.QpUWUrkq.dpuf