About 140 people are infected with HIV everyday on the Chinese mainland, a senior official with the Ministry of Health said.

This compares to about 192 new cases everyday in 2005, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 50,000 new HIV carriers were discovered on the Chinese mainland last year, said Hao Yang, vice director of the ministry's disease control department.

By the end of September, 244,302 cases had been discovered on the mainland while about 77,000 of those were AIDS patients, Hao said.

More than 34,000 people have died from the disease on the mainland, he added.

More than 450,000 HIV carriers still didn't know they have been infected as the country had an estimated 700,000 carriers, according to Hao.

Sex replaced drug taking as the main cause of AIDS in the capital city of Beijing.

A total of 45.5 percent of HIV-AIDS cases were contracted through sexual contact while 28.3 percent were due to injecting drugs, the city's health officials said.

(Shanghai Daily November 28, 2008)