The number of reported cases of HIV / Aids in China leapt by nearly 30 percent in the first 10 months of this year, fuelled by ignorance among intravenous drug users about reusing needles and a reluctance in the sex industry to use condoms.

While the higher number reflects a greater openness among officials to acknowledge the spread of the disease, experts say it still hugely understates the real total and highlights the high risk of wider infection.

Hao Yang, an official at the Health Ministry, said: "The rising reported figures of both HIV infections and Aids patients indicate that the epidemic in China is still serious and the danger of the disease spreading further remains high."

China has for years been reluctant to admit to the presence, let alone the spread of AIDS, and the social stigma associated with the disease nationwide makes many people reluctant to seek medical attention for fear of public exposure.

After years of denying that Aids was a problem, Chinese leaders have dramatically shifted gears in recent years, confronting the disease more openly, promising anonymous testing, free treatment for the poor and a ban on discrimination against people with the virus.

President Hu Jintao symbolised the new approach when he appeared on national television in late 2004, chatting and shaking hands with AIDS patients.

The reported number of HIV cases grew more than 28 percent, to 183,733 by the end of October, up from 144,089 at the end of last year, the Health Ministry said. Of the reported cases, more than a fifth, or 40,667, have developed into Aids. In the same there were 4,060 Aids deaths, bringing the total number of reported deaths in China due to the disease to 12,464 since it was identified in China in the early 1990s.

The Health Ministry said 37 percent of the cases reported this year were linked to drug use and 28 percent to unsafe sex. Fewer than 40 percent of prostitutes use condoms and slightly more than half of all drug addicts still share needles.

Joel Rehnstrom, coordinator for the UNAIDS China office, said: "Each new HIV infection is a tragedy. The government needs to focus its efforts on ... trying to stop the spread of HIV and to trying to bring the spread of HIV under control as soon as possible by controlling HIV transmission among injecting drug users and sex workers."

In the northwestern city of Lanzhou, officials announced they had recently launched a "100 percent condom project" among sex workers in the city. The government is ensuring that condoms are available and are publicized in karaoke parlours in the city and in public lavatories in the city centre.

Mr Rehnstrom told the Associated Press that reported HIV cases have been steadily increasing at a rate of about 30 percent a year since 1999. But with testing programmes still inadequate for such a large country, the real number of HIV cases is likely four to five times the reported figure.

Surveys of various regions showed the infection rate among gay men was between one and four percent in some areas and people infected through blood transfusions in the 1990s accounted for 5.1 percent of the total number of confirmed cases.

Aids activists and campaigners said the figures represented only a fraction of the actual infections in China. Hu Jia, a prominent activist, said: "There are still many people who do not know they are already infected while there are others who are afraid of discrimination and avoid getting tested."

Zhang Hulin, 42, a shop worker from northern Shanxi province was one of the patients who met President Hu. He said he had received government-provided antiretroviral drugs that have kept him relatively healthy, but making a living is difficult.

He said: "In the countryside especially, it’s hard for us. My wife was fired from her job last year after the employer found out I had HIV. It would be good if there were some better measures to help us deal with these discrimination issues."

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