There has been a sudden spike in the number of AIDS cases among male university students in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, local health officials said.

Nearly 40 universities in Guangzhou have reported AIDS cases among their student population, with most of those affected being homosexuals, according to Wang Ming, director of the city’s disease control and prevention center.

Wang said one university that was not identified had reported more than 10 cases, New Express Daily reported yesterday.

“Though not many university students contract HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), there is a trend. We need to face up to hard reality,” Wang said.

In recent years, collegians have become more open about sexual relations but the nation’s sex education still lags behind, Wang explained, adding, “The reason gay students have the highest risk is because most of them don’t have safe sex. Since they don’t need to worry about pregnancy issues, too often they don’t use condoms.”

Since gays often prefer to remain private, authorities and organizations spread knowledge about AIDS prevention and treatment to them via the Internet, such as on QQ chat groups, Wang said.

In Guangzhou, the number of AIDS patients aged between 15 and 24 increased from 101 in 2008 to 203 in 2012. The number of student cases rose from seven in 2008 to 25 in 2012, and now the total number is 111, the newspaper reported

Nationwide, the share of young people around the age of 20 in all HIV infections almost doubled from 2008 to 2012, with male-to-male sex as the prominent contributing factor.

“Among all HIV cases reported across the country last year, 1.7 percent were youths aged between 15 and 24, up from the 0.9 percent in 2008, and the number of infected college students keeps rising,” said Shang Hong, director of the HIV/AIDS key laboratory under the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Shang added that 95 percent of the infected in the group were boys, and 70 percent of these infections were through male-to-male sex.