What are the risk factors for HIV/AIDS?
What are the risk factors for HIV/AIDS? Anyone can get HIV/AIDS. When HIV/AIDS first was recognized some 20 years ago, it was almost exclusively a disease of white, homosexual males. This is no longer the case. In South Carolina, nearly 50% of cases reported in 2000 were transmitted through heterosexual (male/female) contact. African Americans were nine times as likely to be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS as whites. Women and children are increasingly at risk. Approximately one-third of HIV cases are women. In South Carolina, almost 70% of those with AIDS or HIV are African Americans. The “changing face of HIV/AIDS” points to a number of risk factors in addition to unprotected male homosexual sex. The Centers for Disease Control says you are at risk of HIV infection if you: • Have shared injection drug needles and syringes or “works” • Have had sex without a condom with an HIV-positive partner • Have had a sexually transmitted disease, like chlamydia or gonorrhea • Had a blood transfusion or
