American Red Cross - Health and Safety Services - HIV/AIDS Facts, November 2001

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This Month's HIV/AIDS Facts

These facts contain commonly accepted public health information about the prevention and transmission of HIV and AIDS. If this is not the information that you are seeking, please use the Back button on your browser to visit another section of our site. Thank you.

Question: Isn’t AIDS a gay disease?

Basic Answer: No. AIDS (a result of HIV infection) is caused by a virus (HIV). Anyone can get HIV through blood-to-blood or sexual contact with a person with HIV. Like anyone else, men who have sex with men are at risk if they have contact with an HIV-positive person’s blood, semen, vaginal fluid or breast milk.

Detailed Answer: No. AIDS (a result of HIV infection) is caused by HIV, a virus that can infect people regardless of sexual orientation. HIV can infect anyone who has sexual or blood-to-blood contact with an HIV-positive person. The virus can infect men, women and children. Men who have sex with men or women and women who have sex with men or women are at risk if their partners have HIV infection. Correct and consistent use of latex (or polyurethane if allergic to latex) condoms, however, greatly reduces the risk of transmission. Risk relates to what people do, not who they are.

In many countries, the numbers of women with HIV are nearly equal to the numbers of infected men, and the number of women with HIV/AIDS continues to steadily increase worldwide. As of July 2002, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimated that about 18 million women were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, accounting for 47 percent of the 37.2 million adults living with HIV/AIDS. In many countries, HIV spreads mostly through sex between men and women. And in the United States, the number of people with HIV/AIDS who became infected through sex between men and women continues to grow.

SOURCES:

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). "The Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic: The Barcelona Report." July 2002.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. "HIV Infection and Women." Fact sheet. May 2001.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "HIV and Its Transmission." January 2001.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. MMWR, 1997; vol. 46, no. 37. "Update: Trends in AIDS Incidence United States, 1996."
Mann, J., and Tarantola, D., eds. AIDS in the World H: Global Dimensions, Social Roots, and Responses. 1996.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Surgeon General’s Report to the American Public on HIV Infection and AIDS. June 1993.

For current statistics, contact the CDC National AIDS Hotline (800/342-AIDS), Spanish (800/344-7432), TTY/TDD (800/243-7889); the CDC Voice and Fax Information System (888/232-3228); the CDC National Prevention Information Network (800/458-5231) or its Web site at www.cdcnpin.org; or the CDC HIV/AIDS Web site at www.cdc.gov/hiv/dhap.htm.