n rural India, where HIV infection is increasingly common, the disease is spreading to a large number of women via their partners. Knowledge is the main, critical step towards stopping the spread of HIV to women. What factors prevent women from gaining and using knowledge of HIV and AIDS to protect themselves and others?
India has one of the highest numbers of HIV infected people in the world, estimated at 3.82 to 4.58 million people. HIV infection is spreading from high risk to low risk population groups, to rural areas and to women in large numbers. A report in 2000 showed that around 40 percent of women in India were aware of AIDS. While knowledge of AIDS appears to have improved overall since then, a gap still exists between women and men.
Research by the UK's University of Southampton identifies the social, cultural and reproductive health factors associated with awareness of HIV and AIDS among rural women in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, where urban HIV infection is relatively high. It also looked at factors associated with womens knowledge of whether AIDS can be avoided and awareness of what steps can be taken to avoid infection.
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