Rise in AIDS, HIV cases in China

Beijing : China has seen an increase of 14 per cent in the number of people living with HIV and AIDS, officials have said.

In the second quarter of 2018 alone, 40,104 cases of people living with HIV/AIDS were newly reported, with about 93.1 per cent having contracted the virus through sex.

By June end, there were 8,20,756 living with HIV and AIDS -- an increase from 7,20,000 since June 2017.

At the National Conference on HIV/AIDS in China's Kunming city, National Health Commission official, Wang Bin, said that about 80.4 per cent of HIV/AIDS patients in China had received anti-virus treatment by 2017 end.

Figures from the commission showed that by June, a total of 2,53,031 people in China had died of the virus ever since it was first discovered. However, the number of HIV infections caused by blood transfusions have essentially been reduced to zero, Xinhua news agency said.

(Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at sharmagaurav71@gmail.com)