Hour 16: Women and girlsGlobally, there are more than 17 million women currently living with HIV. Some reports suggest that women constitute 54% of the total HIV-positive population worldwide. Each minute of each day, one young woman becomes infected with HIV. AIDS is the biggest worldwide killer of women aged 25-49. In Australia, approximately 12% of people living with HIV are women.

Research has shown that if a pregnant woman living with HIV has access to antiretroviral medicines, the risk of transmitting the virus to her child is less than 5%. Efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV from a mother to her child during pregnancy need to be scaled up, particularly in developing nations.

Both of our guests have been living with HIV for more than 20 years and attribute their longevity to antiretroviral drugs. Their stories of losing family and friends due to the virus remind us of the urgency of global accessibility to these lifesaving medications.

With the AIDS 2014 conference coming to Melbourne in July 2014, Suzanne Paxton details the extraordinary line-up of women around the world who are leading the response to HIV in their countries. Kim Davis highlights some of the outstanding women working throughout the Asia-Pacific region; they are driven by a passionate determination to ensure that what happened to them will not happen to other women.GuestsSuzanne PaxtonPositive Speakers BureauKim DavisPositively FabulousHosted by Katie Larsen.

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