To celebrate World AIDS Day on Thursday, Global 99 and the Critical Development Forum aimed to bridge the relationship between global inequality and the AIDS epidemic.The event on campus included a panel of seven AIDS activists and public health practitioners who brought personal experiences, issues in resource-limited countries, and underrepresented topics of the disease to the discussion.
Ruth Deya, a first-year epidemiology student at the UW pursuing her master’s in public health and a medical doctor in Kenya, brought up the issue of the amount of AIDS cases in Kenyan women growing significantly. Women aged 15 to 24 are four times more likely to be infected than males, Deya said, and poor women are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, largely due to balancing the risks of such behavior with other social issues, like hunger and crime. Read more of UW Daily's front-page coverage.