The province of Guangdong now ranks fifth in the country for HIV/AIDS cases, a Health Ministry senior official said on Monday.

A total of 17,505 people were infected with HIV by the end of last year, putting the province behind Yunnan, Henan, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Dai Zhicheng, director of the ministry's experts' commission on HIV/AIDS, said at the closing of the fifth sex culture festival in the city.

Of those infected with the virus last year, 1,388 went on to develop full-blown AIDS and 512 died from the disease.

Some experts estimate the number of HIV cases in the province to have hit 40,000, Dai said.

The number of HIV carriers in seven cities in the Pearl River Delta accounted for 72.5 percent of those infected in the whole province. And while intravenous drug use is still the main mode of transmission for HIV/AIDS, the number of people infected through sexual contact increased by 10 percent from a year ago.

That meant the disease, previously occurring more among drug users and prostitutes, now has the potential to spread further in the community, Dai said.

Apart from the three major modes of transmission - drug use, sexual contact and mother-to-child - the high mobility of those infected and low testing rate for the disease among drug users and prostitutes are exacerbating the situation. (By Liang Qiwen)