City statistics indicate that there are 755 newly diagnosed HIV carriers in the Chinese capital, down 22.4 percent year-on-year.

Up to October, Beijing had registered 5,635 HIV/AIDS patients, of whom 219 were foreigners, 1,184 local residents and 4,232 people from other parts of China, according to a report on Beijing's AIDS prevention work released by the municipal health bureau on Nov. 26.

The report said sexual transmission has overtaken intravenous injection as the main channel of contracting the virus for the first time. The cases of HIV infection have also been rising among gay men.

The capital has set up nine methadone clinics to contain the spread of HIV, in hopes that patients will stop using intravenous drugs. Anyone aged 20 or older can visit the clinics for 10 yuan (US$1.45) per day.

More than 500 methadone clinics have been set up across the country, offering treatment for almost 440,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients.

China's Ministry of Health, the UNAIDS program and the World Health Organization have jointly estimated that there were some 700,000 Chinese living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2007, including 85,000 AIDS patients.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2008)