[Not Available].

The proportion of women among people with HIV infection and AIDS in Germany is considerably smaller than the proportion of men. The differential extent of the HIV epidemic in women in developed and developing countries is caused by certain social, cultural and economic conditions. During the course of the HIV epidemic in Germany the proportion of females among the infected persons has increased slowly, but steadily and has reached 20% by now. Also the transmission risks have changed. In the beginning of the epidemic the majority of women with HIV infection were IDU (intravenous drug users), since the nineties the majority has been infected by heterosexual intercourse. Despite the increase of HIV infected females the number of perinatally infected children has been decreasing in the last five years. This is because a combination of antiretroviral prophylactic therapy with primary cesarean section as the mode of delivery has been established as the standard procedure in Germany. With this procedure the transmission risk from mother to children declined to below 2%. Because these measures can only be used, if the HIV status of the pregnant women is known, HIV antibody testing with adequate counselling should be offered to all pregnant women.