BEIJING AP China is bracing for a fourfold rise in AIDS cases within two years and putting in place a 12-year plan to try to slow the rapid increase. Issued on the eve of Tuesday's World AIDS Day China's AIDS control program hopes to keep the number of people suffering from the HIV virus that causes the disease to under 1.5 million by 2010 the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Monday. Although China has officially recorded 11170 HIV cases Health Ministry officials estimate that more than 300000 Chinese have the disease. Xinhua said that number is expected to swell to 1.2 million by 2000. To mark World AIDS Day and show greater government commitment to controlling the disease Beijing on Tuesday opened its first exhibition on the disease featuring photos of drug users and AIDS patients. For the first half of the 1990s China's AIDS epidemic was confined largely to counties along the southwestern border with Southeast Asia's heroin producing region known as the Golden Triangle. But flourishing drug and sex trades have carried the disease into every part of China. Citing unnamed government and AIDS experts Xinhua said that sharing of contaminated needles among drug users accounted for the majority of HIV cases. In a worrying sign for the future the number of sexually transmitted diseases is increasing 16 percent annually. Under the Health Ministry's action plan China hopes to lower the growth rate of sexually transmitted diseases to 15 percent by 2002 and will launch a nationwide campaign to educate people how to prevent AIDS Xinhua said. The AIDS control plan also vowed to: educate 80 percent of prostitutes drug users and other high-risk groups; and 70 percent of city and 40 percent of rural residents; put education programs in all higher education secondary and vocational schools drug rehabilitation centers jails and labor camps. In addition by 2005 the Health Ministry will set up a network of 30 provincial laboratories and one national reference center to monitor AIDS trends. Hospitals in major cities and areas with high numbers of AIDS cases are supposed to set up treatment centers and counseling services and purge their blood supplies of the disease. APW19981201.0721.txt.body.html APW19981201.0617.txt.body.html