March is Women’s Month so it is fitting that this news should alarm Black women everywhere. With all of the mounting odds against us, it is becoming more & more important for us to have regular pap smears, mammograms, and tests run for herpes and HPV. For younger Black women, get all the info you need about HPV vaccinations here.
CLICK HERE to learn more about herpes and what you can do to prevent exposure. -NewsOne Staff
The latest news out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is very troubling, to say the least.
A jaw-dropping 48 percent of black women between ages 14 and 49 have the virus which causes genital herpes, says the federal agency. Blacks in general are more than three times as likely as whites to have herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) (39.2 percent vs. 12.3 percent).
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Why is it so much higher among black women? It is likely that biological factors make women more susceptible to genital herpes than men, says the CDC. American women in general are nearly twice as likely as men to be infected (21 percent vs. 11 percent). Then add on top of that socioeconomic factors that negatively affect blacks’ general state of health, and it’s no surprise that black women draw the short straw when it comes to getting genital herpes.
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