"The epidemic of HIV/AIDS is still at a relatively low level,'' Yin said, "but for a country with a very large population like China, that would mean a relatively high absolute number of people with infections.''

Experts estimate that more than 600,000 people in the country have already been infected with HIV.

Intravenous drug use still is the most common transmission route of HIV infection in China, contributing to 69.8 per cent of the total reported cases. All three HIV transmission routes -- blood transmission, sexual contact and mother-to-infant -- have been documented in China.

The rate of infections caused by contaminated needles continues to increase. As of June 2001, HIV/AIDS infection cases among injecting drug users (IDUs) have been found in 27 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, especially in Yunnan, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Guangdong and Sichuan, the vice-minister said.

In the past several years, HIV/AIDS has spread rapidly in some parts of China, resulting in the virus being transmitted locally and leading to great concerns at home and abroad.

Yin said a major cause of the problem is the rampant illegal blood donation and collection that took part in some central provinces in the early 1990s.

According to epidemical reports, 996 HIV cases were infected through blood donation from 1998 to June 2001, which accounted for 6.0 per cent of the total number of reported cases during the same period. Most patients were infected in the early 1990s.

Yin estimates that at least 30,000 to 40,000 illegal blood donators have been infected by HIV/AIDS.

The Chinese Government has placed great importance on controlling the rapid increase of HIV/AIDS since the first HIV/AIDS case was reported in 1985, he said.

On May 25, the State Council issued a five-year (2001-05) plan on the prevention and control of HIV and sexual transmitted diseases (STDs).

China vows to control the annual increase of HIV/STD incidence to a rate below 10 per cent and lower the rate of HIV transmission through clinical blood transfusion to one in 100,000. In regions with serious HIV epidemic, this indicator could be adjusted to between one in 10,000 and one in 50,000, Yan said.

(China Daily 08/24/2001)