European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 05, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Virus claiming a new Breed of victim by Usa Levitt Ryckman the associated press 7. The lace of he second wave of aids infection is Young and female the face of a Mother like a Maria Ferrer she hugs the child at hers Ide a tiny Mirror image with the same Long dark hair deep set eyes and flawless. Skin. A. A. Another victim of this incurable disease even though she is not infected. Quot what s going  happen to my girls when pm gone Quot Ferrer asks her voice husky from a sore  a drug addict since she was 14, the 36-year-old tested positive five years ago for his the virus that causes aids. Her husband is infected too. They have not told their three Young  they Haven t asked me do you have aids but in some Way i think they do  know Quot she said. Quot the thing that concerns me most is my  a a in the next 10 years new York City officials estimate 100,000 children will lose one or both parents to aids. In new York and Newark n a it is the no. 1 killer of women Ages 25 to 44a this year aids is expected to become Quot the fifth leading cause of death for All . Women of childbearing age just behind cancer accidents heal disease murder and suicide and ahead of strokes liver disease and diabetes. Over the course of the disease More than 16,800 women have been diagnosed with aids nationwide a almost one third of those in the last year. While most women still Are infected a through intravenous drug use the tide has taken an ominous turn. Now 35 percent of infected women have contracted aids through sex sometimes with a Man they 7 have no reason to suspect is a Carrier. This is what aids specialists Call the Quot epidemics second wave a deadly Stream of infection that sweeps whole families into a sea of terrifying social Legal and medical issues. A. A a a a a 7. --7�?. A a j men still account for the bulk of aids a cases but the disease is spreading faster among women. Last year there was a 29 percent jump in the number of female cases compared with an 18 percent increase for men Black and hispanic women Bear the Brunt of the epidemic with infection rates wildly disproportionate to _ their numbers although they represent Only 20 percent of . Women they Are 72percent of All adult female aids cases. Despite protests by groups such As act up women still Are underrepresented in government drug trials the Only Access a most people have to the latest treatments r women make up 6 8 percent of trial participants even though they make up 10 percent of All Case nationwide and 20 percent of All cases in new York City. Children s treatment options lag even or. A re Rubenstein who treats children with aids examines a patient. Not what s going to happen to my girls when i a Maria Ferrer aids victim further behind about 3,000 cases of paediatric aids have been reported in the United states and 84 percent of those were born infected the disease 7. Progresses rapidly in babies far Fasier than in adults most babies develop full blown aids in their firs year said or _ Margaret Oxtoby of the centers for disease control in Atlanta. A researchers have  determine How Likely it is that an infected woman will pass his to her unborn child she said most studies place the risk at 25 percent to 35 percent but a recent european Survey which followed the children of 400 his. Infected mothers Tor 15 months after birth pegged the risk at about. 13 percent. Research also indicates that the More advanced the woman s disease the More teaching teen before it s too Likely she will transmit the virus to her infant. A a Donna Bersch a Bronx social worker took in a 5-year-old girl whose Brief existence with an his infected Mother and aunt had been More about dying than living. A. 7quot a �?�?7 her grandmother who had raised her As the family bounced in and out of residence hotels died of heart disease in 1987 a a year later the girl s father whom she had seen just three times in her life died on the Street of a drug overdose a year after that her drug addicted Mother died of aids and tier aunt was diagnosed with the Quot disease. ,. A Quot three months after the girl came to live with Bersch she asked a natural question with no ready answer Quot who s going to take care of me when you die7 Quot that. Question haunts women who know they May die soon  to  arrangements to have their children cared 7 for by someone they choose for Maria Ferrer there is time. She is still healthy she will find a Way to Tell her girls that she is infected then she will find a Way  them for life after her death. Whatever Tinne leave left on this Earth Quot see said Quot i Vyan Tjo do something for my  Leslie Dreyfous a the associated press n Kokomo ind., As in so Many other 7 places Ards myths die hard. A Quot this is the City where parents fought to keep Ryan White out of school. Fearful that he would spread the disease 7 that eventually killed him. And. Today Many of Kokomos teen agers seem to believe a they Are somehow immune from aids. But just As Kokomo s fears about aids reflected a hysteria found everywhere in the epidemic s Early Days the false sense of Security harboured by its teen agers mirrors a troubling bravado among the nation s . 7"it might be different if someone around Here got aids through sex or drugs but that has t happened so far Quot said Carrie Lewis 16, a Sophomore at Kokomo s Western High. Quot kids think they re Safe that nothing Wilf happen to  a adolescence is traditionally about. Testing limits pressing Luck defying.,authority. But As aids continues spreading within the , such risk taking has become an Ever More dangerous game. V a a the centers for disease control in. Atlanta so far report 670 cases of adolescent of tvs with the number loge Jed annually rising from 36 in 1985 to 160 in 1 1990 although still relatively rare doctors say they Are alarmed. While Gay men drastically curbed sexual activity to slow the viruses spread during the 1980s, several National studies indicate a teen agers became More sexually Active and at younger Ages than Ever. The cd reported this year that More than half of american females Between 15 and 19 had had premarital sex a an increase of about 23 percent since 1980. A a a a researchers a statistics May it because symptom has a 10-year inc show up immedi nearly 7,100 a 24 have been dig. More than 27,001 in men and worn according to the the kids May  re Safe their Peers comic disease said d treads the cd cd a. Branc but the year Olds with All.  a ,. Under the most p years after Reinin that included Dat and multiple sex a transmitted aids who died at 18 or. Most  America still thin disease a said m. Who. Was diagnose her daughter by them  m the Good new  Prever. A virus has mom to a years fifty sever Active 15 to 19-y. 1988 used Protee a had Intercourse Guttmacher instil. And 31 percen year old women v Intercourse at Lea modified their be according to a reexports a Tribul wheelchair bound aids victims join in amp Anarch for Lesbia Page 2 a the stars and stripes wednesday june 5, 1991