ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1666408
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Prevention of HIV Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women: Leaving No One BehindView all articles
Global burden of HIV, syphilis, and HBV infection among women of childbearing age and children under five: based on the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2021
Provisionally accepted
- Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
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Introduction: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), syphilis, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection pose a major global public health challenge. However, high-quality and integrated data on the burden of these diseases among women of childbearing age (WCBA) and children remains limited. This study aims to provide a comprehensive global assessment of HIV, syphilis, and HBV among WCBA and children under five years, and to explore their potential relationships. Methods: Data on the global prevalence among WCBA and incidence among children under five of HIV, syphilis and HBV infection were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021 covering the peroid from 1990 to 2021. Temporal trends were analyseded using annual average percentage change (AAPC) and joinpoint regression. A Bayesian age-period-cohort model was used to forecast the disease burden from 2022 to 2030. Results: In 2021, the age-standardized prevalence (ASPR) of HIV among WCBA was 830.87 per 100000, while the age-standardized incidence (ASIR) of among children under five was 15.39 per 100000. From 1990 to 2021, the ASPR of HIV in WCBA demonstrated sustained growth, whereas This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article the ASIR in children exhibited a rise-then-fall pattern. For syphilis, the 2021 ASPR among WCBA was 1057.32 per 100000 and the ASIR in children was 58.36 per 100000; both matrics followed a declining-then-rising trend, returning to 1990 levels by 2021. Both the ASPR of HBV infection among WCBA and the ASIR among children under five declined significantly from 1990 to 2021, with average annual percentage change of -1.25% and -4.14% respectively. Generally, ASPR and ASIR decreased as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) increased. Regions with lower SDI experienced a disproportionately higher burden of HIV, syphilis, and HBV infection. Conclusion: In 2021, the global disease burden of HIV, syphilis and HBV infection remained high among WCBA and children under five, with significantly regional and demographic disparities. These findings indicate a persistent public health challege, necessitating continued global efforts to mitigate the burden through addressing socioeconomic inequalities, strengthening health education, and expanding healthcare access.
Keywords: Global Disease Burden1, Women of child-bearing age2, HIV3, Syphilis4, hepatitis B5
Received: 15 Jul 2025; Accepted: 26 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lian, Zhang, Ke, Li, Li, Wang, Feng and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Suping Wang, supingwang@sxmu.edu.cn
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