Editor’s note: This is the third post in a three-part series on fighting HIV/AIDS among women. The New Agenda is recognizing National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10^th) by profiling breakthrough ideas in stemming the tide of new HIV/AIDS cases among women.

Increasing community-based HIV/AIDS testing, particularly in minority communities, was part of President Obama’s campaign platform. CBS/CNN television reporter Sanjay Gupta – who turned down the Administration request to become the nation’s surgeon general – outlined Obama’s campaign plan, which promised to engage all federal agencies in the domestic war against HIV/AIDS.

With Obama now in office and the economy in recession – some are concerned he won’t be able to make good on that campaign promise. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the nation’s largest HIV charity, is criticizing President Obama’s just-released budget because it holds funding flat for HIV prevention efforts through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The organization contends such a flat funding scale when taken into account with inflation is a reduction in HIV prevention funding. Former CDC Director Julie Gerberding said the CDC’s budget would need to double spending to prevent the rise in new cases.

Now more than ever, investments in prevention can make an enormous difference in saving money and lives in the future.

Research and experience shows that epidemic control requires first knowing who is infected. Widely available and encouraged testing is imperative in detecting women who are carrying the virus. Our country could do much better in removing barriers to testing. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends routine screenings for all women, but few women know about the test and feel comfortable getting it. The benefits can be profound. For example, breakthroughs in treatments have reduced an HIV-positive mother’s chances of passing the virus to her baby to nearly zero.

A recent public opinion survey commissioned by the National Minority Quality Forum shows that 65 percent of likely voters support routine HIV/AIDS testing. Eighty-five percent believe that private insurance and/or government health plans should cover the cost of HIV/AIDS screening as part of routine healthcare similar to cholesterol testing, which catches problems early, saving lives and money. California recently signed a bill into law that would require private health insurers to cover the cost of testing.

In the current issue of The Atlantic HIV/AIDS researcher William Hasteline published a commentary calling for the implementation of more wide spread, universal testing for HIV. Haseltine notes that history has shown that epidemics can be controlled, even in the absence of a vaccine. He says both syphilis and tuberculosis were pandemic at the end of the nineteenth century, and both epidemics were controlled by effective diagnosis and treatment. “So, too, might the current HIV/AIDS pandemic be slowed until vaccines are someday available,” writes Haseltine.

Diagnosis through testing is one part of the war against HIV/AIDS, treatment is another, and the routine practice of safer methods to prevent HIV is the final imperative in eliminating HIV/AIDS among women. On a podcast Wanda Jones, the director of the Department of Health and Human Service says it is critical that policymakers and healthcare leaders recognize that HIV/AIDS is a simply a different disease for women and girls with an entirely different set of risk factors. “It affects women differently than it does men. The virus is more easily transmitted from men to women than it is from women to men,” said Jones. “The difference in the social and sexual power between men and women may also inhibit women from asking their partner to use a condom or from negotiating safer sex in other ways.”

The female condom is currently the only woman- controlled preventive method against HIV infection. Yet, it is a poorly funded invention and has been ignored by policy makers, making far too expensive and largely unavailable. The female condom is virtually nonexistent in the United States. In many cases, pharmacists are not even aware of the option.

In India, the female condom was introduced in 2007 by the National AIDS Control Organization and rapidly gained acceptability. In one year, the pilot program tripled its demand for the condoms – from 500,000 to 1.5 million – while halving the price from 45 rupees (1 dollar) to 23 rupees.

Atlanta’s Freda Jones gave up her job as a hair stylist to become an HIV peer educator — empowering other women to be much more proactive in learning their status and taking steps to protect themselves. She says fear and stigma keep women silent, submissive and incredibly vulnerable. She says sharing her story on LivingQuilt.org was liberating for her and thousands of women just like her. Before her diagnosis in 2002, Freda did not know any other women who were HIV-positive. Now she’s joined a community.

Tune in and call into Chewing the Fat with Ophelia tonight for a provocative discussion with a true warrior in the fight against HIV/AIDS among women: Dr. Bambi Gaddist Executive Director of The South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council (SCHAC) and spokesperson for Living Quilt.org.   Find out why the disturbing growth in new cases among women persists, the implications of AIDS policies in an Obama administration, and what we can do about it.