Unsafe sex sets women at higher HIV risk than men, as the results of a study show that the virus can penetrate even safe vaginal tissue.

Previously, it was believed that just damaged vaginal tissue could pave a way for the virus. But now the current findings suggest that HIV can breach the healthy tissue as well.

Different HIV charities in UK urged women to avoid unsafe sex without knowing about the health of their partner.

Squamous epithelium, the vaginal lining was believed to keep the infection at bay, but the study says that the Virus can penetrate it as well.

The researchers from Chicago University found that the infection could move quite faster in the skin than it was expected.

Usually the skin becomes fragile when the cells are near to be died because in such situations cells do not bind tightly together.

The researchers used a marked HIV to know about its movement and they found that it moved almost a millimeter in the surface within just four hours.

The researchers said that it could come across the immune cells that it required to battle with and could settle itself there.

“We definitely need some new strategies for prevention as well as therapeutics to avoid the entry of the virus in women’s vaginal skin.”