Opinion: First ladies can help lead the fight against HIV/AIDS

Complacency, the United Nations warned in its latest report on AIDS, constitutes a grave threat to decades of progress against HIV. The report, a self-proclaimed “wake-up call,” was directed at the entire global health community. But its message is particularly urgent and personal for African women, who bear the brunt of the HIV pandemic but who are also in the vanguard of the fight against it.

In sub-Saharan Africa, women between the ages of 15 and 24 years represent just 10% of the population, but 25% of . In West and Central Africa, are among young women. Access to the antiretroviral drugs that fight HIV, which pregnant and breastfeeding women need to stay healthy and protect their babies from infection, has over the past three years.