MEXICO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua)-- Women now account for more than 20 percent of Mexico's 112,000 AIDS cases, a huge jump from the 10 percent five years ago, local radio reported on Wednesday.

    The figure was "both sensitive and serious," said the country's Secretary of Health Jose Angel Cordoba Villalobos.

    He said the infection trend suggested that HIV-carriers who do not know their status are spreading the disease to their partners.

    More than half of the 112,000 known AIDS patient died of the disease, Cordova said, noting the remainder were being treated with anti-retroviral medicines.

    Mexican health experts feared that there were a great many undetected AIDS cases, and the figure may be as many as 200,00, he said.

    Also on Wednesday, mayor of Mexico City Marcelo Ebrard said an international conference on AIDS, scheduled for Aug. 3-8, 2008 in the Mexican capital, is expected to draw some 25,000 experts from 127 nations

    Mexico City was chosen as the venue at the last session of the conference held in Canada's Toronto in 2005. Mexico is the first Latin American nation to hold such an event.

    At the conference "we will be able to discuss the public policy measures we need to carry out and the decisions we need to make to protect our population," Ebrard said.