China saw a 22 percent rise in death toll caused by infectious diseases last year, with a peaking 45 percent increase in cases of HIV/AIDS, according to the annual epidemic report released by the Ministry of Health on Friday.

More than 4.7 million cases of infectious diseases were reported, up 2.95 percent on 2006, it said. The diseases led to the deaths of 13,037 people, 2,311 more than the previous year.

Cases of respiratory tract and blood-borne/sexually transmitted diseases rose by 3.55 and 6.96 percent, respectively, it said.

Scarlet fever and measles were the two respiratory tract infections to have registered the sharpest increase in the number of people infected.

The number of reported HIV/AIDS cases increased 45 percent year-on-year.

The ministry had said last November that over 700,000 people were living with the virus, an increase from an earlier estimate of 650,000 in late 2006.

Only 223,501 of them had been officially reported to have contracted the disease by the end of 2007.

"The sharp increase in reported cases of HIV/AIDS doesn't mean the HIV/AIDS situation is getting worse," Gao Qi, a project manager with the China HIV/AIDS Information Network, was quoted by China Daily as saying.

"The increase might be due to more screening tests."