WASHINGTON – Tackling the female side of the AIDS epidemic means going far beyond today’s global focus on pregnant women, specialists told the world’s largest AIDS meeting Wednesday.

Already women make up half of the world’s HIV infections. Adolescent girls are at particular risk in the hardest-hit parts of the world, and protecting them requires addressing the poverty, violence and discrimination that too many women experience around the world, said
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Geeta Rao Gupta.

“These adolescent girls and young women, our sisters and daughters, represent an unfinished agenda in the AIDS response,” she told the gathering.