BEIJING, Dec 1 (AFP) - China Wednesday banned all advertisements and public awareness notices advocating the use of condoms, after the first advertisments were carried on nationwide television earlier this week.

"Presently according to the State Advertisement Law, sex products cannot be advertised," an official at the advertising department of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce Administration Bureau, told AFP.

All such advertisements, including print, radio and television were included, he said.

Clarification of the ban came on International Aids Day.

China's Family Planning Propaganda and Education Center began running the first-ever nationally televised public awareness advertisement promoting the use of condoms on China Central Television Sunday in anticipation of International Aids Day.

The advertisement showed a cartoon-style condom fighting off the attacks of the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases as captions said "Avoiding unwanted pregnancies" and "Use a condom, no trouble."

China's official news agency Xinhua insisted the country has been lightly hit by the AIDS epidemic, with only 15,088 HIV cases reported by the end of September, while 477 cases of full-blown AIDS cases known in China and 240 known deaths so far.

But medical experts however believe that up to 400,000 Chinese are HIV carriers.

According to state-run television 67.3 percent of the country's reported HIV cases are affecting people under 30 years of age, so the state campaigns against AIDS this year are targetting youth.

Wednesday the Beijing Morning Post carried a long report debating whether condoms should be passed out in Chinese schools.

Meanwhile the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in China grew to 630,000 reported cases nationwide in 1998, the highest number this decade, China Central Television reported.

In the first nine months of 1999, 570,000 cases of sexually transmitted diseases were reported. The actual number of cases is believed to greatly outnumber the reported cases as non-official clinics are numerous and drugs, such as penicillin, are available over-the-counter.

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