AIDS AND YOUTH

Roughly 30% of the world's 34m people infected with HIV are aged 15-24, according to UNICEF and UNAIDS. Hardest hit is sub-Saharan Africa, where there are 7.9m HIV-infected youths. Girls, usually infected by older men and at an earlier age than boys, bear the brunt of the disease. In South Africa, a quarter of young women are infected; in Botswana, a third carry the virus. Ignorance is partly to blame. Surveys in Tanzania, for example, show that many young women have little idea of how to protect themselves. In Zimbabwe, where HIV is rife, over half of sexually active teenage girls do not consider themselves to be at risk. In Europe and the Americas, home to 580,000 HIV-infected young men, boys are twice as likely to be infected as girls because of homosexual transmission and higher rates of intravenous drug use. UNICEF believes that better education about AIDS at an earlier age is crucial to stemming the spread of AIDS.