Husband admits injecting sleeping wife with HIV

An HIV-positive man has infected his wife with the virus, which can cause Aids, by pricking her with a sewing needle dipped in his own blood.

The man injected his wife while she slept. It is believed he wanted to give her the disease so she would start having sex with him again, the Sunday Star Times reported.

It is the first case of its kind in New Zealand. Other cases have seen HIV-positive people infect others through unprotected sex.

The man, 35, admitted infecting his wife, 33, and has been remanded in prison awaiting sentence for wilfully infecting another with a disease, an offence that carries a maximum 14 years' imprisonment. He is due to be sentenced in the Auckland High Court early next year.

The pair cannot be identified.

The man discovered he was HIV-positive during health checks imposed on them when the family arrived in New Zealand in 2004.

However, his wife and children were not. The woman said she wanted to maintain the relationship for the sake of the children.

She described how in May last year she discovered a sting-like mark on her left thigh. Later that morning, when she returned home from her nursing studies unexpectedly, she saw her husband in the bedroom with a syringe full of blood.

Two days later she awoke to a stinging feeling in her leg. He denied pricking her but later she found evidence of "blood sprinkles" on the duvet.

In September, when her doctor suggested a test at a routine check-up, that she found she was HIV-positive.

Police charged the man in October last year.

The couple had been experiencing relationship problems, in part because of the woman's refusal to have sex with him, as she feared she would contract the disease.

The woman said when she confronted the husband with the diagnosis late last year he admitted dipping a "sewing needle" in his blood and pricking her with it.

"All he said [was] he was sorry. He said: `I used needles on you because I wanted you to be the same as me so that you can live with me and you won't leave me'."

- NZPA