In the first 10 months of this year, 382 residents here were found infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 7 per cent more than the 356 cases uncovered over the same period last year.

The count for the full year is expected to exceed last year's, the Health Ministry (MOH) said, in a statement timed to coincide with World Aids Day today.

Last year, 423 residents here were diagnosed with HIV, the highest number in a year since the disease first surfaced here in 1985. The official tally of people here stricken with HIV now stands at 3,865, of whom at least 1,176 people have died.

Those who died did so after the infection developed into full-blown Aids - their immune systems were destroyed, which opened the door to other infections such as tuberculosis.

The true prevalence of the disease here has been put by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAids) at two to four times higher from undiagnosed cases and cases diagnosed abroad but so far unrecorded here. UNAids estimated 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV last year, of whom 2.7 million were infected last year.

Read the full story in Monday's edition of the Straits Times.