According to the health administration, 44.7 percent of the newly contracted HIV/AIDS victims in 2007 contracted the virus through heterosexual transmission, 12.2 percent through homosexual transmission, 42 percent through intravenous drug injection and 1.1 percent from mother-to-baby transmission.

China is now working on the country's first nationwide program in a bid to control the spread of AIDS among male homosexuals, according to the health ministry.

Studies are under way in several cities to collect information on gay men, such as their distribution and behavioral patterns, according to Wang Weizhen, deputy director of the HIV/AIDS prevention department under the ministry's disease control bureau.

The newly issued infectious disease report also showed a sharp rise of 24 percent in syphilis cases.

As for cholera, there were 164 cases last year, up 2.46 percent, but with no fatalities.

The report said four human cases of bird flu were reported last year resulting in two deaths. In 2006, there were eight fatalities from the 12 cases reported.

In general, no mass outbreaks of disease were detected last year, it said.

But there were sporadic cases, including a dengue fever outbreak in Guangdong and Fujian provinces between August and October, measles in Sichuan province and parts of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and a hepatitis A outbreak in parts of Guizhou and Gansu provinces.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2008)