The number of new HIV cases in Hong Kong hit a two-year high in the July-September quarter, with homosexual and bisexual activity significant factors in the infections, the Department of Health said yesterday.
It registered 113 new HIV cases, the most since the same period in 2009, when there were 123 cases, said special preventive programme consultant Dr Wong Ka-hing.
He expects that this year's total of infected cases will exceed last year's figure of 389, and possibly even the total for 2009. There were 317 new cases in the first nine months of this year, exceeding the 287 cases recorded in the same period last year.
He said 43 of the new cases resulted from homosexual or bisexual contact and all were male.
Twenty-five resulted from heterosexual relations and one from drug injection.
The causes of the remaining 43 cases were not known, Wong said.
Of the 113 newly infected, 93 are men and 20 women.