One million Chinese have been infected by HIV since the first case was detected in China in 1985, Tuesday's Beijing Youth Daily reports.
The number of HIV/AIDS-positive patients registered in the first six months of this year went up by 16.7 percent from the same period last year, but the rate of increase had slowed down, the newspaper quotes sources from the Chinese Ministry of Health as saying.
About 70 percent of the HIV/AIDS patients in China have been infected with the fatal disease via drug abuse, but the number of sexually transmitted HIV/AIDS cases has kept rising year by year.
Since the first AIDS case in China was discovered in 1985, the incidence of the disease has increased rapidly. By September 2001, all China's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had reported the disease.
Experts warn that the number of infected people in the country could reach 10 million by the year 2010 if no effective measures are taken to control the disease's spread.
(China Daily November 20, 2002)
