Higher risk for indian women

Bloomberg.com: Science: "Indian women who are physically and sexually abused by their husbands are four ties more likely to have HIV than other wives, according to a study that adds to evidence of a link between abuse and the spread of AIDS.

The study of 28,139 married Indian women, 35 percent of whom reported being physically abused and 7.7 percent sexually abused by their spouses, suggests that AIDS prevention should focus more on mistreatment of women, researchers said. The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

India's AIDS epidemic is the third largest of any country in the world, and infections among women are rising, the authors said. Health officials should target wives who are forced to have unsafe sex, along with their husbands, for preventive measures, said study author Jay Silverman, an associate professor of society, human development and health at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

``Sexual abuse of adolescent girls and women is driving the HIV epidemic in India and around the world,'' he said yesterday in a telephone interview. ``We need to make it a major priority for prevention.''"