'Invisible' Epidemic Now Becoming Visible as HIV/AIDS Pandemic Reaches Adolescents

"THE NEW face of AIDS worldwide is the face of teenaged girls," the director, Adolescent AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) Program, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, says. Speaking at the American Medical Association's (AMA's) 2-day Early Intervention Conference for physicians and also at the 1-day press briefing held in Berlin, Germany, just before the Ninth International Conference on AIDS last month, Karen Hein, MD, made this alarming statement. Hein, who is also professor of pediatrics and associate professor of epidemiology and social medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, said that the number of 13- to 21-year-olds in the United States who have become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has risen by 77% in the last 2 years. In this age group, half of the transmission of the virus occurs through heterosexual intercourse. Seeing only a few hands raised when she asked her listeners how many had treated