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Woman "never told husband of her HIV"

The Local Sweden
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Woman "never told husband of her HIV"

A Swedish mother of two is facing prosecution after it emerged that she had been married for nine years without informing her husband that she was HIV positive.

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The woman, from the Helsingborg area in the south of Sweden, had both her children while she knew she was infected. Yet while the woman herself was undergoing treatment for the virus, she informed neither her husband nor staff at the maternity hospital where she had her children.

Helsingborg prosecutor Tord Josefsson told local newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad that the woman was likely to be charged.

"It looks like we will prosecute her with attempting to cause grievous bodily harm or the crime of putting another person in danger," he said.

The woman contracted the virus while travelling in France in the mid-1980s. The paper reports that she has been receiving treatment for many years, and has contact with an HIV specialist at Helsingborg hospital.

She married her husband in 1995, giving birth to her children in 2002 and 2003.

Her doctor did not know she had had children, and although he knew she had got married, was satisfied with the woman's assurances that she did not have sex with her husband.

The woman's husband first found out about her condition in 2004, when she developed complications after an operation.

HIV tests for both her husband and their elder child have turned out negative. The results of the younger child's test are not yet ready, but Helsingborgs Dagblad claims that the child appears not to be infected.

Meanwhile the husband, from whom the woman is now divorced, is already being prosecuted for unlawful imprisonment. He allegedly tried to prevent his wife and a social worker from leaving the social worker's office.

He had sat on a chair in front of the door, allegedly to prevent the two leaving, during a discussion about custody of the couple's children. The man denies the charges against him.

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