Victoria’s Read

HIV/AIDS in Canada is not what it was a decade ago. HIV/AIDS is on rise for Canadian women.

Although the majority of those living with HIV and AIDS-related illnesses in Canada are men, growing numbers of women, especially young women are becoming infected through heterosexual contact. Without immediate and appropriate action, the HIV epidemic in Canada may well follow the same devastating path as it has elsewhere in the world, spreading through the general population with heterosexual contact as the primary route of transmission.

Since the early 1990s, the rate of new HIV infections has declined among men  This is good news. But in contrast, infections arising from heterosexual contact have risen steadily. The greatest increase in new infections has been among young women, aged 15 to 29. At present, heterosexual transmission accounts for nearly 75% of all new infections in women.

Physiological differences between females and males place women at greater risk of infection. Delicate tissues in the female reproductive tract and concentrations of the virus in semen make it easier for infected males to transmit the disease to their female sexual partners than vice versa.

Social roles and cultural expectations are critical factors in women’s heightened vulnerability to HIV infection. Because women often have less power (social, economic, political) than men in our society, it can be difficult or even impossible for many to refuse sex or negotiate safer sex.

Gender roles and stereotypes also hinder women’s ability to manage HIV and AIDS-related infections. Women diagnosed with HIV tend to, according to Health Canada have a lower survival rate than men in part due to late diagnosis and delay of treatment because of mis-diagnosis of early symptoms; exclusion from drug trials and lack of access to antiviral treatment; lack of research into the natural history of HIV in women; higher rates of poverty among women and lack of access to adequate health care and the tendency of many women to make self-care a lower priority than the care of children and family.

While women as a group are more vulnerable than men to HIV infection and AIDS-related illnesses, some populations of women face significantly greater risks. For example, HIV affects more than twice as many Aboriginal as non-Aboriginal women in Canada. As elsewhere in the world, women in Canada who are most disadvantaged and marginalised are also most vulnerable to HIV.

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