The finding's were disclosed at an AIDS prevention and control meeting in the provincial capital Guangzhou on Wednesday and showed that Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, now has an estimated 30,000 HIV-positive cases.

Significantly, Xinhua said the number of female patients has increased by 11.8 percent over the past year. In Guangdong, the disease is widely found among prostitutes because the use of condoms is very low.

Some 91.5 percent of HIV carriers contracted the virus through intravenous drug abuse and 7.9 percent through sexual activity.

A large number of the official estimate of 840,000 HIV/AIDS patients in China contracted the disease through unsanitary blood donation stations or tainted blood, with the worst affected areas in central Anhui and Henan provinces.

Yao Zhibin, director of Guangdong's health department, said the province would work to promote condom use while establishing care and monitoring centers in an effort to prevent the disease ballooning out of control.

International organizations, including the United Nations, believe China's official figure for the number of infections is far too low, suggesting it could rise to 20 million by 2010.

In recent months, China has appeared more determined to address HIV/AIDS, with Premier Wen Jiabao visiting AIDS patients in a Beijing hospital on World AIDS Day.

"Together, they represent a global imperative to do more for children in 2004," she said in a statement.

People under the age of 25 account for more than half of all new cases of HIV/AIDS and 14 million children have already been orphaned by the disease -- a figure that is destined to rise, according to the agency.

As for war, more than two million children have died as a direct result of armed conflict in the past decade and three times that number have been permanently disabled or seriously injured, UNICEF said.

The exploitation and abuse of children was also a serious challenge, warned the organisation, noting that an estimated 246 million youngsters are forced to work, 171 million of whom do so in hazardous conditions.

"At any given time, over 300,000 child soldiers, some as young as eight, are exploited in armed conflicts in over 30 countries around the world," UNICEF said in the statement.

In addition, nearly 11 million children die annually before their fifth birthday and many more are left with physical or mental problems because their families do not have the means to fight killer bugs such as measles, malaria and diarrhoea, the agency observed.

Finally, UNICEF warned that governments in both the developed and developing world have failed to recognise the importance of investing in children, largely through better education.

"If we continue to invest in children and insist that they be a central focus of any discussion about development, we may indeed make the world a better and safer place," said Bellamy.

Frozen samples of his earlier donation, made on May 19, were then re-tested and also found to be HIV-contaminated.

"The initial donation was taken during the window period (immediately after infection). We don't have technology to detect the virus under those circumstances," Tadokoro reported at an emergency meeting of health experts, held at the health ministry.

The screening test, the nucleic acid test (NAT), introduced by the Japan Red Cross in 1999, failed to detect HIV in the initial donation presumably because the donor gave the blood within the 11-day window period, Tadokoro said.

"The test is sophisticated and advanced. Still, contaminated blood can go through our system," he said.

"What we need is public awareness. We must discourage those who have engaged in risky behavior with regard to HIV infection from donating their blood," Tadokoro said.

The Japan Red Cross will raise its level of screening, testing 20 donations at once rather than the current 50, he said.

Tadokoro also blamed a tendency to use blood donation centers, rather than public health facilities, to test for HIV.

Of 100,000 blood donors in Japan, 1.4 people were found to be infected with HIV, roughly double the infection ratio among the general public, Tadokoro said.

"In Japan, we are seeing more and more people becoming infected with HIV, while many other foreign countries are seeing their infection rates fall," he said.

"On top of that, we are seeing people donating blood to test for HIV because blood donation centers are more welcoming than public health facilities.

"Many blood donors are giving their blood to help those who need it. But we must aggressively educate the public that you must be responsible when donating blood," he said.

It is the second case of donated HIV-contaminated blood slipping through the screening net.

In the first case in July last year, the tainted blood was recalled before being shipped for transfusion.

In 2001, then-Surgeon General David Satcher warned AIDS was a ticking time bomb for American Indians. Now, Indian infection rates are 1.5 times that of white Americans.

More than 30 new cases were identified on the Navajo Reservation this year, including the first documented cases of transmission on the reservation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is closely tracking the numbers.

Cases for all groups, including American Indians, peaked in 1996 and then dropped with the introduction of new medications. But cases for all groups are on the rise again.

American Indians are infected with AIDS at a rate of 11.7 per 100,000, more than 1 1/2 times the rate for whites and twice the rate for Asians, according to the CDC. The highest infection rates nationally are among blacks and Hispanics.

Satcher said the death rates for American Indians are also higher than those of some other groups. "I think it's a combination of later diagnosis and less access to aggressive treatment."

Jeanne Bertolli, an epidemiologist in the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, said HIV and AIDS may be even more devastating in American Indian populations because it comes on top of other health risks, including higher rates of diabetes, alcoholism, homicide, suicide and accidental death.

"Native people are vulnerable," Bertolli said. "The conditions exist that can allow the spread of the disease, including high rates of sexually transmitted infections and illicit drug use."

Dr. Jonathan Iralu, chief clinical consultant for infectious disease for the Navajo Area of the Indian Health Service, said 24 new HIV cases were diagnosed on the reservation last year. Fifteen cases were diagnosed the year before.

Almost all the cases were sexual transmissions, he said.

"A year ago there was evidence people were catching the virus on or near the reservation," he said. "Before that we blamed the cases on Phoenix, Albuquerque or Los Angeles."

The increasing number of cases worries Iralu, as does the spread to women, because it signals a widespread problem.

"Heterosexual transmission is a worrisome pattern in the developing world," Iralu said. "It's a sign of more general local spread, and it tells us that there's a risk of congenital spread from mother to child."

By KEN MAGUIRE, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - A Fitchburg woman who received nine years of HIV treatments after she was misdiagnosed with the virus is suing the doctors and clinics who treated her.

Audrey Serrano, 41, said she was diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS in 1994 by the Family Practice Clinic in Fitchburg, but six blood tests since Labor Day show she does not have HIV. The lawsuit was filed Dec. 29 in Worcester Superior Court and seeks unspecified damages.

"It's nice to not constantly feel like you're going to die, literally," she said. "I'm still tired a lot, though."

Serrano claims she's suffered a variety of physical ailments — including colitis, an inflammation of the intestine — because of AZT and other harsh medicines she took daily to fight the virus, which attacks the immune system. Emotional distress led to depression, she said.

In addition to the Family Practice Clinic (now called All Family Care Inc.), the lawsuit names several doctors and clinics that treated Serrano, including Dr. Kwan K. Lai, who works for the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester; Dr. Bonnie Laudenbach, who now works in Kentucky; and Women's Medical Associates, formerly of Fitchburg.

UMass Memorial spokesman Mark L. Shelton said the hospital did nothing wrong. The hospital has not been notified of the suit, but received a letter from one of Serrano's attorneys alleging negligence and "demanding 'the maximum amount of compensation permitted by law,'" he said.

"These allegations are unfounded and UMass Memorial is confident it would prevail should a suit actually be brought and a full and objective review of the relevant records be conducted," Shelton said in statement. "UMass Memorial has not treated anyone for HIV who did not have HIV, and there is no factual basis for reporting otherwise."

A call to All Family Care was not immediately returned. There was no answer to calls to Laudenbach's office in Ashland, Ky., and there was no listing in Massachusetts for Women's Medical Associates.

Serrano's suit claims, among other things, that her providers failed to periodically retest her to determine the accuracy of the initial test.

Serrano, who is divorced and has a 13-year-old daughter who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she became suspicious of her HIV-positive status just before Labor Day after obtaining her medical records, and noticing the word "negative" beside a long list of tests. She got retested.

"Part of me still didn't believe it, that's why I went for another test," Serrano said. "I kept saying 'one more test.'"

She's unsure whether the test nine years ago was a false positive, or if it was a record mix up. "It didn't hit me until I got to my car," she said. "I just sat in my car and a I cried. I was numb. I didn't know what to feel."

Serrano, an alcoholic who had been sober for three years before the HIV diagnosis, started drinking again. "I ended up totaling my car," she said.

She spent 30 days in a women's prison in Framingham for drunken driving.

Serrano celebrated nine years of sobriety on Nov. 9. She's unemployed, but is studying to be a paralegal and does AIDS outreach.

She said she still suffers side effects from taking more than 20 pills daily for nine years. Bowel problems from colitis require frequent trips to the bathroom, and her strength is limited, she said.

One of her attorneys, Ross Annenberg, said there's no specific dollar figure they are seeking. That would be determined later, he said.

"(Serrano) incurred great sums in medical expenses, lost significant earnings, and has suffered diminished earning capacity in the future as a direct and proximate result of the defendants' negligence," the lawsuit states.

The defendants have about three weeks to respond to the suit.