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HIV is often thought of as a disease that primarily affects gay men, drug users and prostitutes. But in sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic has taken a surprising turn. Young women at many economic and educational levels are bearing the brunt of it. NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff looks into a study in South Africa that's trying to figure out why.
MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE: When you're pregnant, going to the doctors can be exciting. You get to find out if you're having a boy or girl. But in southern Africa, many women find out something else. Allison Groves is a behavioral scientist at American University. She recently ran a study in a city outside Durban, South Africa. They followed more than 1,500 pregnant women and tested them for HIV. The results left her speechless.
ALLISON GROVES: Thirty-eight percent of the women tested positive during pregnancy which is just, you know, intense.
DOUCLEFF: Wow.
GROVES: Yeah. And that's typical. That was not like we were only capturing very high-risk women.
DOUCLEFF: In fact, these women seem like the least likely to get HIV. Most were married or in a committed relationship, and they weren't having affairs. So how did so many of them get HIV?
GROVES: Oh, Michaeleen, I don't know yet.
DOUCLEFF: But Groves does have a clue. During their pregnancies or right afterwards when their babies were tiny infants, nearly half of these women were abused. They were hit, beaten, emotionally abused or even raped.
GROVES: These women are living in situations and circumstances that no matter sort of where they turn or what they do, they are faced with risk of violence and then also, you know, very negative health outcomes. And so much of that is beyond her own control.
DOUCLEFF: The implication is their partner somehow infected them. Zeda Rosenberg is the CEO of the International Partnership for Microbicides. She says these women often can't avoid getting HIV. They don't have a choice.
ZEDA ROSENBERG: Women do not have control over their lives sexually.
DOUCLEFF: It's difficult for them to ask their partners to get tested. They don't even have control of when they have sex. In some parts of Africa, the U.N. estimates that up to 60 percent of women are raped by their partners, and condoms are often out of the question.
ROSENBERG: Men either threaten violence if they are asked to use a condom or actually incur violence. It is pervasive that the power dynamics here favor men.
DOUCLEFF: But Rosenberg is trying to tip that balance, and she's doing it with an unlikely tool - a vaginal ring.
ROSENBERG: It's an open ring...
DOUCLEFF: That's soft and flexible, and it sits inside the vagina and releases HIV drugs into the reproductive track. It's been proven that these drugs prevent HIV infections.
ROSENBERG: The ring is a nice discreet method because it's worn internally. No one knows you have it, and it does not interfere with the sexual experience.
DOUCLEFF: The man doesn't even know it's there. It's secretive. Rosenberg has been working on the ring for more than a decade. Last week at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, she and her colleagues announced results from a big clinical study. The ring was up to 70 percent effective at stopping HIV when women wore it consistently. Dazon Dixon Diallo is president of the nonprofit Sister Love, which helps women fight HIV.
DAZON DIXON DIALLO: We can all be very excited about the ring.
DOUCLEFF: But, Diavolo says...
DIALLO: Getting people to use these products is the challenge.
DOUCLEFF: Diallo points out that a third of the women in the trial chose not to use the ring. Right now it's unclear why. But at the end of the day, she says, women may need a tool that's even easier, even more secretive like a shot they get every few months or better yet, a vaccine. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.
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