More than half of Beijing's 90,000 prostitutes still do not ask clients to use condoms despite more people contracting HIV/AIDS through sexual contact, a municipal health official said Tuesday.

Only 46.5 percent of the prostitutes use condoms, said Fang Laiying, the Beijing municipal public health bureau chief. This made them more vulnerable to the deadly virus.

Sexual transmission has replaced intravenous drug use (IDU) as the main cause of HIV/AIDS in the capital, accounting for 54.6 percent of infections, Fang told a work conference.

Though the HIV/AIDS infection rate in Beijing is still considered low, the spread of the virus has to be checked, Fang said.

By the end of last month, the capital had 5,635 known HIV/AIDS patients, with 21 percent of them being Beijing residents, 75.1 percent non-Beijing residents and 3.9 percent foreigners. The first HIV/AIDS case was detected in Beijing in 1985.

In the first 10 months of this year, 755 new cases were reported - a drop of about 22 percent year-on-year - with 219 of them being foreigners.

Another alarming trend is the spread of the disease among the not-so-high-risk groups "largely because of increased transmission through sexual contact", Fang said.

From 2004 to 2007, the percentage of infection through sexual contact increased from 25 percent to 42 percent, and this year has seen another big jump, to nearly 55 percent.

"The HIV/AIDS transmission rate among homosexuals has increased greatly," Fang said. A study shows the rate of infection among homosexuals has risen from 0.5 percent in 2004 to 5.5 percent this year.

Altogether, 248 of this year's, or 33 percent of the total, are homosexuals.

An effective way to prevent contracting the virus is to use a condom with a new or unknown sexual partner.

That's why the health bureau has decided to promote distribution of condoms at all public venues, Fang said.

Apart from the 22,000 spots where free condoms are already available, the bureau will supply the contraceptive free in all Beijing hotels, restaurants and resorts by the end of this year.

The city already has 3,000 condom vending machines, and the bureau will install more machines at all entertainment venues in Beijing, including nightclubs, discos, karaoke bars and sauna and massage parlors.

Such machines will also be installed at construction sites where more than 500 people work. The health bureau launched a campaign earlier this year to raise migrant workers' awareness about HIV/AIDS and teach them preventive measures.

The Ministry of Health announced in September that sexual transmission had overtaken IDU as the main cause of HIV/AIDS in the country.

There are about 700,000 HIV-positive patients, including an estimated 85,000 full-blown AIDS cases in the country, said a UNAIDS report issued a couple of months ago.

(China Daily November 26, 2008)