Chinese state media said that reported cases of HIV/AIDS increased upto 30 percent in 2006, compared to the year previous, with intravenous drug use the main source of infection. Of the reported cases, 40,667 have developed into AIDS, it said.
The newspaper said the spike in cases was due in part to better reporting by health officials and patients. It said that 37 percent of the cases reported this year were linked to drug use and 28 percent were caused by unsafe sex.
It said 5.1 per cent were caused by people selling blood illegally or receiving infected blood from hospitals. The report didn’t say what caused the remaining 30 percent of infections.
At the end of last year, China and the U.N. estimated that the total number of HIV cases in China was about 650,000, with 75,000 having developed full-blown AIDS.
Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV is a retrovirus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. Previous names for the virus include Human T-Lymphotropic Virus-III (HTLV-III) and lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV).[1][2]
Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, Cowper’s fluid or breast milk. Within these body fluids HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells. The three major routes of transmission are unprotected sexual intercourse, contaminated needles and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth or through breast milk. Screening of blood products for HIV in the developed world has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in these countries.
HIV infection in humans is now pandemic. As of January 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized on December 1, 1981, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in recorded history.