China could face a tragic surge in HIV/AIDS cases unless it curbed the spread of the disease among the vast country's transient rural workforce, a Chinese health expert said Thursday.

Poorly educated migrant workers had highly risky sexual practices, said Wan Shaoping, a medical doctor and project officer with the China-U.K. HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project in southwestern Sichuan Province.

Wan told a health seminar in Hong Kong that there were at least 100 million such workers in China.

"The Chinese Government is now putting a lot of attention on HIV/AIDS, but we have to focus on the most risky group, this floating population," Wan said.

"Otherwise, they will carry the virus all over the country and it will cause a tragedy in the country's public health system."

"According to surveys, 10 percent to 48 percent of males in this floating population exhibit highly risky sexual behavior," Wan said, adding that they often visited prostitutes.

"And in this risky group of males, 70 percent have never used condoms, and most of them were unaware of the dangers of HIV and AIDS," he said.

Among the women, many often resort to becoming sex workers when they cannot find other work.

"These women have up to four customers a day. They spread the virus and the men take the virus all over the country," Wan said.

"So their threat to China's HIV/AIDS problem is huge."

China has recently paid more attention to the epidemic. It has sent teams of counselors to villages across the country to teach safe sex. But Wan said that was not enough and that more effort must be put into educating migrant workers.

(Shenzhen Daily June 10, 2005)