Kerala textbook caught up in HIV misinformation row

A tenth-standard textbook in Kerala is caught up in a controversy as it mentions that HIV spreads through premarital and extramarital sexual contact.

Arun N M, a native of Palakkad district, posted the controversial content on social media on Monday.

It is in a section on AIDS in the Biology textbook of Kerala syllabus that the misleading information has crept in. To a question on the ways in which HIV spreads, one of the four reasons given is, 'through premarital/extramarital sexual contact'.

Mr. Arun pointed out that the students were being taught misleading information. "It should have been Unprotected sex with a person infected, not premarital or extramarital sex! Students should be taught science!!!," he commented on social media.

Meanwhile, the Kerala State Council of Educational Research and Training that brings out the textbook has taken note of this and being removed.

The council director J Prasad told DH that this content was there on the 2016 edition of the textbook. Many such errors have been cleared and the new edition would be brought out soon. From next year onwards it would be distributed to students, he said.

Even then, the concern that remains is that the students who have been following this text were being taught wrong information, sources point out.