China reported 18,543 new cases of HIV carriers and 4,314 cases
of full-blown AIDS in the first half of this year.
Two thousand and thirty-nine peopled died of the disease in the
first six months of the year, said Han Mengjie, assistant to the
director of the office with AIDS Control Work Committee of the
State Council.
By late July, the accumulated number of AIDS/HIV patients in
China totaled 214,300, of which people with full-blown symptoms of
the disease numbered 56,758, and 18,246 had died of the killer
disease, Han said at a recent symposium sponsored by the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the office with AIDS Control Work
Committee of the State Council, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and
Henan Provincial Government in Zhengzhou, capital of central
China's Henan Province.
Han cited drug abuse as the major form of newly reported HIV
infections across the country, and warned that the virus was
seemingly spreading from high-risk groups to the general public
because of other factors such as unsafe sex and migration of those
people already infected with the virus.
(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2007)