MEXICO CITY, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- The 17th International AIDS Conference appealed Thursday for increasing the awareness of AIDS in Latin America, said a report released by the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

    The report said the Caribbean has become the second largest region affected by HIV in the world followed by Sub-Saharian Africa.

    There are a total of 230,000 people infected with HIV in the Caribbean, with 20,000 more cases registered in 2007.

    The Dominican Republic and Haiti are among the countries with most cases in the region.

    It is generally estimated that 1.7 million people live with HIV/AIDS in Latin America, and some 63,000 people died in 2007 due to AIDS-related diseases.

    Some 140,000 new HIV cases were reported in Latin America last year, the report said.

    The UNAIDS report revealed that sex between homosexual men without protection is a major cause of HIV transmission in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

    According to UNAIDS, there were about 33 million people living with HIV around the world by the end of 2007.

    Although the number of HIV cases has been stabilized since 2000,the total number of HIV carriers has risen as consequence of new infections, the report said.

    UNAIDS said in the report that it is urgent to prevent new HIV infections which is important for reverting the HIV/AIDS course in the world.