The human toll

On November 11 last year, a scrawny man lay motionless, mouth open to the gray concrete ceiling. Next to him, the cardiogram screen registered a long, cold, straight line.

His 68-year-old mother froze still, tears streaming down her gaunt face. His wife was still stuck on the highway in heavy snow.

Infected during blood transfusion after a car accident in 1997, Liu Qiang, a driver from Shuozhou, a prefecture-level city in Shanxi Province, died of AIDS after a more than 1 million yuan ($147,000) fight.

"All ended in a blink. There was no hint it was coming," Liu's mother said, choking back the tears.

Three minutes later, the Sisters came. It was their first death: Wang Xia rushed to the helpless old lady and hugged her tightly while Wang Aixia removed Liu's gauze mask.

The nuns went to work dressing the dead man in a decent suit, formal leather shoes and a woolen coat.

Finally, they carefully escorted the body to the mortuary.

Fast facts: AIDS trends in China

Dozens of homosexual men with AIDS circled the Red Ribbon's reception room early in the morning of November 15. Many came for free drugs available three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Eighty percent of 30,000 patients they received in the last five years were gay men, says Wang Kerong, office di-rector of the Beijing Red Ribbon Home, while fewer than 10 percent were infected by blood transmission.

"High-risk sexual activities remain the main mode of AIDS transmission. Sex between men is becoming another leading route as the infection rate among gays is drastically rising," said Health Minister Chen Zhu on November 15.

By September 30, some 366,000 Chinese were infected with HIV; 130,000 of them are AIDS patients and 70,000 died of AIDS, Chen announced.