"Of our 103 counties and cities, 51 of them have discovered cases of people being infected with HIV/AIDS (from tainted blood)," an official from the Hubei province health department told AFP by telephone.

"So far, we have found 1,301 cases of HIV/AIDS in Hubei."

In the 1990s more than 100,000 people sold blood in Hubei, the official said, but added that comprehensive studies had not been done to see how many people in the province were infected.

Hubei is located next to Henan province, believed to be the worst affected from a blood-selling scandal that is wreaking devastation in farming communities, where some villages have the world's worst infection rates.

Other than Henan, which has been the most widely publicized, little has been revealed about Hubei and other provinces, even as officials last week admitted most parts of China had been affected by the unsanitary blood selling schemes.

Hubei is sending government employees to 21 areas of the province with high rates of infection before the end of March to help tackle AIDS, the Hubei health official said.

"They will live there for one year. They will oversee the work of village doctors to detect cases at an early stage, treat patients and set up prevention work," the official said.

A similar scheme is underway in Henan.

China claims 20 percent of its estimated 840,000 HIV/AIDS patients got the disease from selling plasma, but international experts believe the total number of cases and people infected through blood sales is far higher.

TERRA.WIRE