ZHENGZHOU, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- 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.
