BEIJING: At least 1,105 people in Beijing were tested HIV positive in the first 10 months this year, the local health authority said Thursday.

It brought the total number of HIV carriers and AIDS patients in the city to 6,987, according to the municipal health bureau.

Deng said AIDS was spreading rapidly in the city and HIV transmission among homosexuals was increasing rapidly.

In China's northwest province of Shaanxi, 338 people were infected with the HIV virus and 29 had died by Wednesday since the beginning of the year, the provincial health administration said Thursday.

So far, the province had registered 1,620 HIV carriers and AIDS patients, including 277 deaths.

Unsafe sexual behavior and sharing of injecting needles among drug users accounted for about 70 percent of all the infections.

A total of 319,877 people in China had been registered HIV positive, including 102,323 AIDS patients and 49,845 deaths, as of October 31, according to statistics released on a national AIDS control meeting.

But the actual numbers could be much greater as the statistics only included cases reported by medical facilities.

AIDS is spreading rapidly among high-risk groups in parts of China and is threatening to become a serious epidemic, said Minister of Health Chen Zhu on Tuesday.

According to estimates by the Ministry of Health and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), China had 560,000 to 920,000 people infected by HIV virus and 97,000 to 112,000 AIDS patients by the end of 2009.

Another 41,000 to 55,000 people would have contracted the virus within 2009, according to the estimation.