Thousands at Risk From AIDS Infected South Korean Prostitute

A 28-year-old South Korean prostitute has been arrested for having sex with thousands of clients without telling them she was HIV-infected, police said. The woman, identified only by her family name Koo, worked in a red light street in the southern port of Yosu between October 2000 and March 2002. "She said she had sex with up to 10 men a day," and "more than half of her clients refused to use condoms," according to a police official in the southeastern city of Gimhae. Health authorities in Gimhae monitored Koo after she was first detected as having contracted HIV in 1998 but she left the city without informing the authorities. The woman is now an AIDS patient. Under a law to prevent the spread of HIV, people infected with the virus can be sentenced up to three years in jail should they engage in activities that spread the virus.

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