Cultural practices make HIV/AIDS a women's disease

MALAWI: Cultural practices make HIV/AIDS a women's disease

JOHANNESBURG, 8 Nov 2004 (PLUSNEWS) - As Malawi prepares to commemorate World AIDS Day, with the global theme of 'Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS', the National AIDS Commission (NAC) has said that HIV/AIDS was killing more women than men.

According to Malawi's Capital Radio, the NAC director for policy and programmes, Roy Hauya, attributed the high number of infected women to "archaic cultural practices", such as wife inheritance and the sexual cleansing of widows.

Ministry of Health figures show that out of 760,000 infected adults aged between 15 to 49 years, 58 percent were women.

[ENDS]

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