The incidence of reported infectious diseases last year was 5.74 per cent lower than in 2001, said a Ministry of Health report.

The State has drafted long-term plans for disease prevention and control, especially on HIV/AIDS. In 2002, the central government invested 800 million yuan (US$96 million) into health units based in western China, which accounts for most of China's cases of infectious diseases.

Still, the number is large and many cases fatal. The ministry on Friday revealed more than 2.3 million cases of various infectious diseases, which killed 4,503 people.

The growing pace of reported HIV cases also slowed sharply. Last year, 9,824 HIV carriers were reported to the ministry, 19.5 per cent more than in 2001 but much lower than the increase of 58 per cent between 2000 and 2001. HIV killed 363 people last year.

The State Council has issued a long-term plan for HIV/AIDS control from 1998 to 2010 that includes a series of preventative measures such as ensuring the safety of medical blood supplies, and fighting drug abuse and prostitution.

The central government from 2001 has increased the special budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and control from 15 million yuan (US$1.8 million) to 100 million (US$12 million).

These figures were announced by the ministry in its survey of major infectious diseases in 2002 in China.

In 2002, the top eight infectious diseases in terms of the number of cases were viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, diarrhoea, gonorrhoea, measles, typhoid fever, epidemic haemorrhage and scarlatina.

Meanwhile, 996 people have died from hydrophobia, with a death rate of 89.33 per cent and ranked the most virulent of all infectious diseases.

The number of cases of contagious diseases from blood transfusion and sexual contact has been higher than those from enteropathy infectious diseases for the past three years.

The number of HIV/AIDS patients reported in 2002 was 1,045, a 46.4 per cent increase from 2001.

By the end of 2002, a total of 40,560 HIV/AIDS victims, including 2,639 AIDS patients, were reported to the ministry, an increase of 32 per cent from 2001.

Drug abuse resulted in the infection of 25,828 HIV carriers -- 63.7 per cent of the total number of HIV carriers reported to the ministry. Other major causes were sexual contact and blood transfusion.

Friday, the first domestically produced anti-HIV/AIDS medicine was approved by the State Drug Administration and can go on to experimental clinic use.

The medicine, invented by Cao Haoyang, a scientist from Xianyang in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, is made from traditional Chinese medicines, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, China has also established a "green'' channel for anti-HIV/AIDS drugs to be imported to China. Foreign HIV/AIDS medicines can now be imported duty free.

In another development, the central government decided to bring the hepatitis B vaccine inoculation into the State's routine immunity plan, aiming to inoculate all newly born babies with the vaccine.

About 10 per cent of China's 1.3 billion population is infected with the virus. About 25 per cent of those infected are likely to develop chronic hepatitis.

(China Daily February 22, 2003)