GUANGZHOU, Nov. 29(Xinhuanet)-- South China's Guangdong Province reported 385 confirmed AIDS patients in the first 10 months of this year, a rise of 323 percent year on year, according to the provincial health bureau.

Of the total confirmed AIDS patients, 53 died, the bureau says. The province also reported 4,448 newly confirmed cases of HIV infection in the first 10 months, much higher than previous years.

The bureau says that the increase in the reported number of HIV/AIDS carriers has much to do with Guangdong's extensive efforts to monitor the spread of the disease this year. The monitor covers larger groups.

To date, the province has 155 AIDS-monitoring stations compared with 69 in the past. AIDS-monitoring now covers all drug addicts in rehabilitation centers, reeducation through labor camps and prisons, prostitutes, people with venereal disease, pregnant women, gays and etc.

Disease control centers and hospitals at or above the county-level, which are designated to treat AIDS patients, have set up AIDS test labs. AIDS-monitoring is conducted throughout the year instead of being conducted in certain periods of time.

Of the 4,448 HIV carriers confirmed this year, 3,519 people know how they contracted the disease. HIV carriers infected through drug injection accounted for 86.2 percent. About 477 HIV carriers, or 13.5 percent, contracted the disease through sexual contact, up 5 percentage points over last year's same period, and 10 cases, or 0.3 percent, contracted through mother-to-infant infection.

Experts with the bureau warned that the killer disease is spreading from high-risk groups including drug addicts and sexual workers to common people.

The province had reported 7,477 HIV carriers by the end of last year, of whom 296 were confirmed AIDS patients. The province had reported an accumulative 293 deaths of AIDS by the end of last year.

China had an accumulative 135,630 cases of reported HIV infection by the end of September, said Vice Health Minister Wang Longde on Monday. The cases involve 31,143 AIDS patients and 7,773 fatalities. Enditem