MANILA, Nov 11 (AFP) - One million people will be infected with HIV in the Western Pacific by the end of next year from 700,000 in 1998, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday.

Keiko Miyagawa, a WHO expert on sexually transmitted diseases, said 60 percent of the infections, or 600,000 people would be found in China and 250,000 in Cambodia.

She said rapid infection rates were being recorded in China, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) can lead to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Miyagawa warned that in Cambodia, HIV infection was threatening to spill over to the general population, unlike other countries where it is generally limited to certain groups.

WHO figures showed that the virus has already infected 3.7 percent of Cambodia's population aged between 15 and 49.

In Vietnam, intravenous drug users would account for most of the expected increase in HIV infection there.

Research showed a steady rise in the number of people acquiring HIV through heterosexual contact, rather than from the sharing of needles among drug users.

"The more recent trend has been a steady increase in the proportion of the reported cases asssociated with heterosexual contact," the UN agency said in a report released here.

In 1987, heterosexual contact accounted for five percent of recorded cases, rising to 33 percent in 1998.

The number of cases caused by intravenous drug use fell to 40 percent in 1998 from 50 percent in 1995, it said.

"The widespread sharing of equipment among injecting drug users primarily in Malaysia, China and Vietnam was most important during the late 1980s and early 1990s, eventually levelling off around 40 percent of reported cases," it said.

AIDS tears down the body's immune system, leaving it defenseless against infections.

WHO Western Pacific, based in Manila, covers Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and various Pacific island nations.

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