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Today AIDS is the fifth leading cause of death among all adults aged 25 to 44 in the United States. Among African-Americans in the 25 to 44 age group, AIDS is the leading cause of death for men and the second leading cause of death for women. Our society needs to become aware that by not protecting ourselves we are killing ourselves and that this has to stop.

Although most of the signs and symptoms of HIV infection are similar in men and women, some are more specific to females. For example:

Vaginal yeast infections may be chronic, more severe, and difficult to treat in women with HIV infection than in women who are uninfected.

Pelvic inflammatory disease, an infection of the female reproductive organs, may also be more frequent and severe in women with HIV infection.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, which cause genital warts, may occur more frequently in HIV-infected women, and can lead to pre-cancerous lesions of the cervix or cancer of the cervix.

Taking anti-HIV drugs during pregnancy'either a drug called zidovudine or AZT only or in combination with new drugs called extremely involved antiretroviral therapy (HAART)'a mother can significantly cut the chances that her infant will have infected with HIV.

Delivering the infant by cesarean part, and doing then before the mother's uterine membranes tear naturally, reduces infection that may happen during the birth procedure. Use of anti-HIV drugs during pregnancy and saving, combined with a cesarean part in women with sure levels of HIV in their blood, can cut the opportunity that the infant will be infected to little than 2 percentage.

Avoidance of breastfeeding by a HIV-infected mother. HIV can be scatter to babies through the bosom milk of mothers infected with the virus. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that, in countries such as the United States, where infant formula is secure and is frequently accessible and cheap, HIV-infected women eat their infants commercially accessible formula instead of breastfeeding.