Women and AIDS

To the Editor: The World Health Organization estimates that more than one third of the 8 million persons infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) worldwide are women. In the United States alone, the number of women with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as of December 1990 was 15,493.¹ The number of cases of AIDS diagnosed in women 18 to 44 years of age increased 29 percent from 1988 to 1989, as compared an increase of 18 percent in men in the same age group.² Women at present constitute approximately 10 percent . . .