The ratio of men to women among newly reported HIV/AIDS cases in China has surged to 2:1, up from 5:1 in the 1990s, a senior official said in Nanchang on Monday.

The number of women sufferers has been rising rapidly since 1985 when China reported its first AIDS case, said Vice Health Minister Wang Longde at a national conference on AIDS prevention for women in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province.

A total of 203,527 HIV/AIDS cases had been reported by April 30, up from 183,733 last October, according to the official.

Women accounted for 27.8 percent of all the reported HIV/AIDS cases in 2006, against 19.4 percent in 2000, and more than half of sexual transmission cases, the official added.

The total number of cases in China -- taking into account those who are unaware that they carry the HIV virus -- is probably around 650,000, according to estimates by experts from the United Nations and the Ministry of Health.

Contaminated needles shared by drug users and unprotected sex are the main causes of HIV transmission in China, according to the Ministry of Health.

(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2007)