How many people were infected with HIV last year?

Chinese vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu says as of the end of last year there were 740, 000 Chinese diagnosed as having HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Huang says sexual contact is overtaking drug-used transmission as the major transmission channel in China. He said Friday that about 44 percent of all HIV positive people contracted it through heterosexual transmission. This compares with about 15 percent via homosexual transmission and 32 percent from intravenous drug use, which the Chinese government used to focus on as the main source of the HIV infection. Huang’s comments came at an event sponsored by UNAIDS to introduce a new campaign to fight the stigma attached to AIDS and discrimination against AIDS patients in China.