BEIJING, Oct 21 (AFP) - More than one million Chinese people could be infected with the HIV/AIDS virus by the new millennium, according to government predictions in the official media Thursday.

Chinese officials are warning that the rate of AIDS/HIV infections is growing fast, and people must be educated to avoid the disease getting out of hand in a country where few have access to the latest treatments.

"Experts predict that the number may exceed one million by the year 2000, unless China takes effective actions to prevent the spread of the incurable disease," Xinhua news agency said.

A nationwide education programme was needed to teach people about limiting the spread of AIDS, a seminar of medical officials told reporters from state-controlled media.

They said that during the first half of the year, an additional 13,913 people in China were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can lead to full-blown Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Deaths from AIDS reached 241 in the first six months of 1999.

"China now has as many as 400,000 HIV carriers, of whom some 70 percent contracted the virus through intravenous drug use," Xinhua news agency quoted the experts as saying.

"It could turn into a huge (cancer) of society if the government fails to take immediate precautions," health ministry AIDS expert Liu Kangmai said.

Liu said a swift increase in the number of patients with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) indicated that HIV/AIDS could spread more quickly in China.

"Traditionally the topic of sex is still regarded as a taboo in this country, so education should be positive, focus on safer sex and give publicity to the AIDS prevention," UNAIDS official Wang Liqiu was quoted as saying.

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