UNITED NATIONS – An estimated 50 million women in Asia are at risk of becoming infected with the HIV virus from their husbands or long-term partners, according to a U.N. report published Tuesday.

The report produced by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, and its partner organizations said the HIV epidemics in Asia vary between countries but are fueled by unprotected paid sex, the sharing of contaminated needles by drug users, and unprotected sex among men who have sex with men.

Men who buy sex constitute the largest infected population group and the report said most of them are either married or will get married.

"This puts a significant number of women, often perceived as 'low-risk' because they only have sex with their husbands or long-term partners, at risk of HIV infection," UNAIDS said in a news release.

According to a report last year on the global AIDS epidemic, an estimated 5 million people in Asia, and 74,000 in the Pacific, were living with HIV in 2007.

The new report, released Tuesday at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Bali, Indonesia, and at U.N. headquarters in New York, said that by 2008, women accounted for 35 percent of all adult HIV infections in Asia, up from 17 percent in 1990.

UNAIDS estimated that more than 90 per cent of the 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia became infected from their husbands or partners while in long-term relationships. In Cambodia, India and Thailand, the largest number of new HIV infections occur among married women, it said.

According to the report, at least 75 million men regularly buy sex from sex workers in Asia, and a further 20 million men have sex with other men or are injecting drug users.

UNAIDS said many of these men are in steady relationships and it is estimated that 50 million women in the region are at risk of acquiring HIV from their partners.

"HIV prevention programs focused on the female partners of men with high-risk behaviors still have not found a place in national HIV plans and priorities in Asian countries," Dr. Prasada Rao, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team Asia and the Pacific said at the launch of the report, according to a U.N. release.

The report notes that the strong patriarchal culture in Asian countries severely limits a woman's ability to control her sex life.

While society tolerates extramarital sex and multiple partners for men, women are generally expected to refrain from sex until marriage and remain monogamous afterward, it said.

"Discrimination and violence against women and girls, endemic to our social fabric, are both the cause and consequence of AIDS," Jean D'Cunha, South Asia regional director for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said in a statement. "Striking at the root of gender inequalities and striving to transform male behaviors are key to effectively addressing the pandemic."

The report calls for stepped up efforts to prevent HIV infections for men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and clients of female sex workers. It said that programs should emphasize the importance of protecting their regular female partners.