WASHINGTON, D.C, Wed. Dec. 1: The statistics are mind boggling. In Haiti an estimated 150,000 women have the dreaded HIV virus; in the Dominican Republic, the reported number is 23,000; in Trinidad & Tobago, 14,000 women; in Jamaica 10,000 and in Guyana, 6,100. According to U.N. AIDS officials, women represent the fastest growing segment of the population living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean and every day 150 women are infected with HIV in this region. In fact, between late 2002 and 2004, the number of women with HIV increased from 520,000 to 610,000 in Latin America and in the Caribbean, from 190,000 to 210,000. While the proportion of women among all adults with HIV has increased steadily in the region and now stands at 49 percent in the Caribbean and 36 percent in Latin America (see table below for country-specific rates). Worldwide, women represent nearly half of the 37.2 million adults (aged 15-49) living with HIV. As World AIDS Day is celebrated around the world today, representatives of ten United Nations agencies, in a joint statement, called on policy and decision-makers in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote new cooperative efforts to address the causes that make women and girls particularly vulnerable to HIV. The U.N. leaders, including the directors for Latin America and the Caribbean of UNAIDS, the International Labor Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank and the World Food Program, say young women are 1.6 times more likely to have HIV than young men and women and girls also know less than men about how HIV is transmitted. Reprinted from Hardbeatnews.com