China may be keeping new estimates for the number of HIV infections secret because they are lower than previously published figures and could undermine the government's credibility, a US researcher said.

This could be the reason why the official HIV figure has remained at 840,000 for the past two years, according to Bates Gill, a China expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"What I've heard is that with further modeling and more fine-tuning of their approaches, they now internally have come to the conclusion that the number may be actually lower than 840,000," he told a briefing in Beijing.

The new estimate, if it exists, has not been made public because of concern about the political impact of such an announcement, he said.

"Clearly the immediate reaction might be, 'Oh my God, they really are meddling with the numbers and they're trying to put forward a picture which is less serious than it actually is'," Gill said.

A Chinese health ministry official in charge of monitoring the spread of HIV confirmed Tuesday the figure was still 840,000, but said a new estimate would be released shortly.

"We're calculating a new figure. It will be issued by the end of this month," the official told AFP, declining to give his name.

The figure of 840,000 HIV-positive cases, as of the end of 2003, is regularly repeated by Chinese authorities.

It is an estimate arrived at using modeling techniques, and the result of a cooperative effort between China, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Program of HIV/AIDS.

The Chinese government has only directly diagnosed HIV in a total of 120,000 people, according to Gill, who regularly travels to China to meet with health ministry and other senior government officials.

"What I'm saying is that nine out of 10 people or so in China today, according to the government's own statistics, who are HIV positive don't know it," he said. "And the government doesn't know who they are or where they are."

Authorities in China only have a rough general sense of where HIV is prevalent, believing it to be more common among intravenous drug users and sex workers, according to Gill.

"That for me has obvious implications for the continued spread of this disease in China, regardless of what the precise number might be," he said.

The United Nations has warned that China may be on the brink of an AIDS epidemic, with 10 million HIV-positive people by the end of the decade.

According to official data, 45 percent of Chinese HIV carriers were infected through intravenous drug use and 25 percent through blood transfusions.

About 30 percent were infected through unsafe sex, and that figure has been rising steadily, prompting calls from health experts for 100-percent condom use programs throughout China.

An HIV test that can be used at home and promises results in 20 minutes could help more people get treated sooner, but raises concerns about how well patients could cope with the test findings on their own, a U.S. advisory panel heard on Thursday.

Testing kits that allow consumers to mail a blood sample to a laboratory for results have been approved in the past, but advocates said allowing people to find out their HIV status at home was easy, faster and more private.

"A number of people don't get tested because they are concerned about privacy," Orasure Technology Inc. Chief Executive Douglas Michels told Reuters at the Food and Drug Administration panel meeting.

The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based company is considering seeking FDA approval for its OraQuick test, which is already sold for use by doctors and other health-care providers.

No company has sought permission yet to sell the products in the United States but the FDA is asking the panelists for their advice as it weighs what criteria to use when considering such proposals in the future.

Agency officials said there were a number of concerns about at-home HIV tests, including how patients would cope with their results, especially people younger than 18.

"Concerns have been expressed over the years about the psychological effects of receiving a positive HIV test result without the benefit of counseling. The issue that has come up repeatedly is suicidal tendencies," said Elliot Cowan, head of product reviews for the FDA's Division of Emerging and Transfusion Transmitted Diseases.

The FDA has been grappling with possible home-use HIV tests since 1986, when manufacturers first told regulators they were interested in selling kits that would allow people to collect a blood sample at home and mail it to a laboratory.

Several such tests have already been approved for HIV as well as hepatitis C.

Orasure's kit would allow a person to take a swab of saliva and insert it into a small bottle, providing the results while the patient waits at home.

Company officials said its HIV test had been proven effective, but they would conduct more studies on how well average people can interpret it on their own. Michels had no comment on when Orasure would file for approval, but said the studies would have to be done first.

The company has not said how it would charge consumers, but the professional version costs between $12 and $17.

Canada's Medmira Inc. is also considering seeking U.S. approval for its version, which uses a blood sample.

Russian jails house some 32,000 HIV positive prisoners and nearly 50,000 inmates with tuberculosis (TB), out of a total prison population of 808,000, according to justice ministry figures presented to parliament.

This year 1,000 more prisoners were found to be infected with the HIV virus, which leads to AIDS, than in 2004, while cases of tuberculosis had fallen by 1,500, the ministry said Wednesday.

The ministry's survey in September recorded a total of 32,062 HIV positive inmates and 49,334 TB sufferers, and was released to lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, the Duma, and to the press in an unusual step by Justice Minister Yuri Chaika.

Ludmila Alpern of the non-governmental Moscow Center for Prison Reform told AFP the decrease in TB cases was due to better treatment of the disease in prisons and a large drop in 2003 in the prison population.

"At the start of the decade, the situation for inmates with tuberculosis was very difficult. Between 2002 and 2004, major improvements were made in this area, with new, efficient treatments introduced," Alpern said.

A large amnesty in 2000 had benefited those with advanced tuberculosis, she added.

The rise in HIV cases "is not caused by an epidemic in prisons but reflects the general trend in the country," Alpern claimed.

Russia's Federal AIDS Centre put the number of HIV sufferers in the country at 305,000 in March, while the UN's UNAIDS programme estimates a far higher figure of 860,000.

The country's jail population has risen sharply over the past year, from just over 763,000 in September 2004 to more than 808,000 12 months later, with nearly 15,000 of those detained aged under 18.

Libya plans to scrap the death penalty to clear the way for the settlement of a diplomatic row over five Bulgarian nurses on death row after hundreds of children were infected with the AID virus, an Arabic daily said.

Tripoli "is about to announce the abolishment of capital punishment to pave the way for commuting the sentences against the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor" convicted with them last year, the London-based paper Asharq Al-Awsat reported citing Arab diplomats close to the Libyan government.

The deal would involve financial compensation for the infected children's families through a fund financed by the Bulgarian and Libyan governments and charities including that of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam.

"The crisis of the Bulgarian nurses ... will soon be settled through a Libyan-Bulgarian deal, sponsored by the European Union and the United States," the Saudi-owned daily said.

The European Union and United States have thrown their support behind Bulgaria's insistence that the nurses are innocent and that the infections in the Benghazi hospital where they worked were the result of poor hygiene.

They and international rights watchdogs have been pressing Libya to show clemency.

Libya insists the only way to resolve the case is for Bulgarian authorities to reach an agreement with the infected children's families, but Sofia has insisted it will pay no "blood money" as the nurses are innocent.

Commenting on the report, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin told reporters in Sofia: "I can only repeat once again the Bulgarian stance, which is quite clear and unchanged.

"Bulgaria has no intention whatsoever to pay compensation to the families of the children because there is no reason for us to do so.

I still expect from the Libyan court, if it is objective enough, to take into consideration all the evidence on the case that proves the innocence of the Bulgarian nurses," Kalfin said.

Of the 380 children infected with HIV, 47 have since died of full-blown AIDS.

The five nurses and Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death last year after spending six and a half years on remand. The Libyan high court is due to decide on November 15 whether to hear an appeal.

Swathed in jewels and bathed in the spotlight, Elizabeth Taylor made a rare but regal public appearance to dedicate the new UCLA Clinical Research and Education Center.

Wearing a cream-colored jacket over a billowy black pantsuit, the 73-year-old actress, who has had severe back problems in recent years, arrived in a wheelchair. She wore a jeweled butterfly barrette in her hair, her arms dripped with dozens of bracelets and a massive diamond lit up her left hand.

In front of an intimate crowd that included rocker Tom Petty and actress Carrie Fisher, Taylor cut a red ribbon to signify the center's official opening Friday and announced the creation of the Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund, which will support the center through grants and private donations.

Taylor, who won Academy Awards for 1960's "Butterfield 8" and 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", said she has traded in the life of an actress for that of an activist.

"Acting is, to me now, artificial," she told The Associated Press. "Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn't be more real. Some people don't like to look at it in the face because it's painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done."

Taylor helped establish the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and created the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991. The two organizations have raised a combined $243 million to fund research and improve the lives of people with HIV and AIDS.

"There's still so much more to do," Taylor said. "I can't sit back and be complacent, and none of us should be. I get around now in a wheelchair, but I get around."

The new center will conduct research and bring innovative treatments to patients, bridging Taylor's two charities, said Dr. Edwin Bayrd, director of the UCLA AIDS Institute. He called the actress "the Joan of Arc of AIDS activism."

A man who had sex with women and teenage girls without warning them he had the AIDS virus was sent to prison Thursday by a judge who labeled him a "violent, self-absorbed outlaw."

Sundiata Basir, 34, was sentenced to 21 years and eight months by District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert I. Richter. The judge told Basir he "knowingly put uncountable people at grave risk."

Prosecutors said Basir learned he was HIV-positive in January 1996 but had unprotected sex with several partners over the years, never telling them about his illness. When some of them asked, he lied.

Among the victims were a 15-year-old girl and Basir's wife, who was then 17. Basir pleaded guilty to first-degree child sexual abuse in the former case, and second degree cruelty to children in the latter. He also pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated assault in the case of a woman he had a long-term relationship with who later became HIV-positive.

Prosecutors said they were able to identify seven victims, but believe there may be others.