An AIDS sufferer died in Beijing last week, the Beijing Health Bureau confirmed Friday.

Statistics from the bureau show that Beijing has 3,142 HIV carriers and AIDS patients in its 18 districts and counties, 313 of whom are cases discovered in the first six months of the year.

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Chinese capital has grown by an average of 40.6 percent each year since 1998, according to Guan Baoying, deputy director of the bureau's Disease Prevention and Control Department.

The deadly virus which first spread among drug abusers, sex workers and homosexuals is now appearing in the general population, Guan said.

Most of the HIV carriers and AIDS patients in Beijing are aged between 20 and 49, the official said.

Guan said that 36.7 percent of people living with HIV and AIDS are drug abusers, 34 percent were infected through sexual contact and the others contracted the disease through blood transfusions and other causes.

Earlier in March this year, the Beijing Health Bureau instructed all hotels -- nearly 5,000 in the city -- to place condoms in their rooms. However, only 60 hotels graded three- or five-star have done so, Guan said.

In addition, the city is planning to open six methadone clinics this year to help drug abusers drop their habit and in a bid to curb the spread of HIV, the official said.

By the end of 2005, there were more than 140,000 people infected with HIV in China. Officials and experts estimate that China has approximately 650,000 people living with HIV, including approximately 75,000 AIDS patients.

Worldwide, total HIV infections had exceeded 40 million and more than 30 million AIDS patients had died by the end of 2005, according to figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). 

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2006)