An estimated 25,000 Chinese died of AIDS last year, according to an updated report on China's HIV/AIDS epidemic released here Wednesday.

Some 75,000 people were infected with HIV in China last year, said the report, jointly written by the Ministry of Health, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO).

"New HIV infections have primarily occurred among high-risk groups, including drug users, sex workers, clients of sex workers, men who have sex with men and partners of people living with HIV/AIDS," vice Health Minister Wang Longde said.

A relatively small proportion of new cases are associated with mother-to-child transmission, he added.

Of the estimated 25,000 AIDS deaths in 2005, approximately 10,000 occurred among former commercial blood and plasma donors.

"The other 15,000 people who died were mainly drug addicts in provinces and regions such as Yunnan, Xinjiang and Guangxi," said Wu Zunyou, a leading AIDS expert at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the report, as of late 2005, there were 650,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China, 75,000 of whom have developed AIDS.

The new estimated figure is below the 2003 figure because the number of commercial blood sellers was overestimated in 2003, the report says.

Source: Xinhua