Women with AIDS: Commonwealth casualties

Article by Alice Welbourn on ACTS in the Commonwealth Health Ministers Reference Book Extract - Around 40.3 million people were living with HIV in the world at the end of 2004. Around two thirds of them, myself included, are citizens of the Commonwealth. I’ve been HIV-positive now for over 16 years. I’m fit and healthy, thanks to good medical, dental, nursing and pharmaceutical care, enough food and support from my friends and family; since March 2000, I have been on antiretroviral therapy – luckily with few side-effects. But my story is very different from the stories of most of the 17 to 19 million HIV-positive women in the world – including many in the UK. Download version in Adobe Acrobat format