By Star News

　　THE rate of increase in the number of HIV carriers and AIDS patients in the city has slowed this year, up by only 6.25 per cent compared with a rise of more than 30 per cent last year over the figure for 2001.

　　Lu Wei, deputy director of the Disease Control Department of the Shanghai Public Health Bureau, announced on a press conference on November 28 that the city had diagnosed another 170 HIV carriers so far this year.

　　"Since 1999, the annual increase in the country has been more than 30 per cent on average," he said.

　　Now the city has a total of 886 HIV carriers and AIDS patients including 251 local residents and 635 people from the provinces.

　　"Of the newly found cases, 52 are local, and 118 are provincial, rising 4 and 7.3 per cent respectively over the same period last year," he said.

　　"The ratio of male to female carriers is about 5.1 to 1."

　　Of the new cases, more than two thirds are aged from 21 to 40 years old, with 55 carriers more than 30 years old.

　　The main channels for the spread of HIV in the new cases were drug-taking, sexual intercourse and blood products, accounting for 45.3, 8.8 and 6.5 per cent respectively.

　　"However, local residents became mainly infected with the virus via sex and blood products. Some 62.8 per cent of provincial victims got the virus from drug-taking drugs," he said.