Who's getting hit the hardest by AIDS?

Women.

In many countries, women's subordinate status, and their lack of education and economic power have made it impossible for them to negotiate sex with men or to ask for the use of condoms. Yesterday the UN agency set up to combat the pandemic, UNAids, called for all that to change in the interests of checking the spread of a disease which killed 3.1 million adults and children last year.

"We will not be able to stop this epidemic unless we put women at the heart of the response to Aids," said UNAids' executive director, Peter Piot.