BEIJING - AIDS was the top killer among infectious diseases in China for the first time last year, with 6,897 people dying from the virus in the nine months through September, a state news agency said.
The number of confirmed HIV infections also rose from 135,630 in 2005 to 264,302 from January to September 2008, Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Ministry of Health.
The government and UNAIDS estimate the number of people living with HIV in China is actually about 700,000 -- much higher than the confirmed number of infections, in part because people are reluctant to be tested. The government estimates that 85,000 of those have full-blown AIDS.
AIDS was previously the third deadliest infectious disease in China; it is now followed by tuberculosis, rabies, hepatitis and infant's tetanus, the Xinhua report late Tuesday said.
The government says 34,864 people have died of AIDS since it reported its first death from the disease in 1985.
China denied for years that AIDS was a problem -- accounting in part for the low number of reported deaths -- but leaders have shifted gears in recent years, confronting the disease more openly and promising anonymous testing, free treatment for the poor and a ban on discrimination against people with the virus. Nevertheless, the government regularly cracks down on activists and patients seeking more support and rights.
The HIV virus that causes AIDS gained a foothold in China largely due to unsanitary blood plasma-buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals. Last year, health authorities said sex had overtaken drug abuse as the main cause of HIV infections.
