UCSF HIV/AIDS expert and international women's health leader insist HIV/AIDS prevention efforts address gender inequity

A international call to action asserting that HIV/AIDS prevention programs must include economic and educational initiatives for women is being issued by Nancy Padian, PhD, director of International Programs at UCSF's AIDS Research Institute and Geeta Rao Gupta, PhD, President of the International Center for Research on Women.

Padian and Gupta are introducing the call to action at UCSF's International Women's Day Symposium, "Overcoming Inequality: Women and HIV-An International Imperative," to be held at the Westin St. Francis from 10 am to noon, Thursday, March 8, 2001.

"International Women's Day is the ideal time to challenge current HIV prevention thinking. After 20 years of research on HIV prevention and reproductive health in both the U.S. and Zimbabwe, I am certain that we need a new approach. HIV prevention programs cannot be successful and sustainable in a world where women are financially dependent and cannot control what happens to their own bodies," said Padian.

The international call to action contains the following points:

Implement measures to improve women's economic status and educational opportunities and include these measures as essential components of every plan to prevent HIV/AIDS. � Expand government and private sector investments in initiatives to improve women's economic roles.

� Ensure that women have property and inheritance rights, and also mandated educational and economic opportunities to achieve economic independence.

� Introduce immediately models of HIV prevention and improved reproductive health that incorporate economic interventions and educational initiatives for girls.

Design all HIV/AIDS prevention programs so that they are fully integrated with other reproductive health programs in every country and meet the gender-specific needs of women. � HIV/AIDS prevention must be addressed in the broader context of reproductive health and must consider issues of pregnancy, other sexually transmitted diseases and overall sexual health and wellbeing.

Appropriate adequate resources for the development and increased accessibility of female controlled prevention technologies-- particularly microbicides (topical foams/creams/gels that kill or block the HIV virus) and other barrier contraceptive methods. � These will protect both women and men, and ultimately children, from infection. Research into these areas has been vastly under-funded.

Reduce the stigma associated with HIV infection and increase social support for women who live with HIV/AIDS or are caring for someone who is. � Encourage people to discuss sexuality and HIV openly.

� Create safe opportunities for women to meet together visibly in order to derive strength from numbers and to draw solutions from each other.

Ensure that women's human rights are respected, protected, promoted and fulfilled. � Make violence against women a critical public health issue. Violence has devastating implications for the health of communities and impedes economic development.

� Ensure that women living with HIV/AIDS or with other reproductive health problems have at least equal access to the standard of care available in their countries.

According to Gupta, "In the era of the AIDS pandemic, we cannot let another International Women's Day come and go without understanding that women's economic and social inequality kills young girls and women. Today marks an urgent occasion to mobilize national governments and international agencies to do what is smart and what is right. Empower women now. Empowering women saves lives and guarantees the wellbeing of households, communities and entire nations."

Media who would like to cover the UCSF International Women's Day Symposium or arrange interviews should call Jeff Sheehy in the UCSF News Office at 415-597-8165.

A live HealthCast will be available courtesy of kaisernetwork.org, a free health policy webcasting and news summary service of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Visit http://www.kaisernetwork.org/healthcast/ucsfhivwomenmar2001 at 10:00 AM (PST).