U.S. SAYS MORE HIV AMONG YOUNG, DISADVANTAGED WOMEN

ATLANTA, (Reuters) - Young black women in a job-training program for
disadvantaged youths were much more likely than other participants to
be infected with the AIDS virus, federal health officials said Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said women aged
16 to 21 who entered the federally-funded Job Corps program between
1990 and 1996 were infected with HIV at younger ages and at higher
rates than their male counterparts.

The CDC said the study of poor youths participating in the
job-training program was not representative of all young people, but
illustrated the extent of HIV among the economically and educationally
disadvantaged.

Among the 350,000 young people who were tested, the rate of
HIV-infection was 3 per 1,000 for women and 2 per 1,000 for men. CDC
epidemiologist Linda Valleroy said the infection rates among young
women were ``alarming.''

``We were very surprised to find that HIV-infection rates were 50
percent higher among young women than among young men,'' she said.
``Usually, you find that prevalence is much higher among men than
among women.''

Young women aged 16 to 18 had a dramatically higher infection rate
than men of the same age, the CDC said. There were no significant
differences in prevalence between women and men aged 19, 20, or 21.

The HIV-infection rate among black women aged 16 to 21 was more than 5
per 1,000.

``HIV prevalence was eight times higher among African-American women
than among Hispanic women and seven times higher among
African-American women than among young white women,'' Valleroy said.

Overall rates of infection among Job Corps participants were more than
twice as high as those seen among youths at adolescent health clinics
and more than eight times higher than young people of the same age who
applied for military service.

The CDC said the figures, reported in the September issue of the
Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes and Human
Retrovirology, indicated that HIV infection is hitting hard at the
nation's most disadvantaged youth.

Rates of HIV infection declined during the seven-year year study
period, the CDC said. The rate for women dropped from 4 per 1,000 in
1990 to 2 per 1,000 in 1996. Among men HIV infection fell from 3 per
1,000 in 1990 to 1.5 per 1,000 in 1996.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry