Textbook in India claims affairs and sex before marriage spread HIV

A state government in India has promised to replace textbooks with incorrect information about HIV.

Photos of a government-issued biology textbook in the southern State of Kerala had been shared widely on social media.

It listed ‘premarital/ extra marital sexual contact’ as one of ‘the ways by which HIV spreads’.

High School students in the state have been studying this incorrect information for the last three years, according to local media.

An official told India Today the mistake had been rectified.

‘We have removed this part and from the next academic year beginning in June, the text will not have this portion’ the official told India Today.

“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.” ~Mark Twain

Kerala State board proved Mark Twain is right. In Class 10 biology textbook they try to say that the HIV virus somehow knows if the sex is marital or pre/extra marital. pic.twitter.com/59Bd6Zslhy

— Nishant (@2dnishant) March 6, 2019

How does the virus know?

Local doctor, named Arun, posted the photo on Monday, according to the News Minute.

‘How does the virus know whether the couple is married or not?’ he asked.

He suggested the textbook instead read ‘unprotected sex with an infected partner’.

HIV can be transmitted from one person to another by bodily fluids including blood, semen, pre-seminal fluids, rectal fluids, vaginal fluids, and breast milk.

Foetal transmission from mother to baby, unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing injection needles, are all ways HIV is spread.

The virus affects 37 million people worldwide, including 2.1 million in India.