(Beijing) Chinese officials anxious to prevent huge numbers attending the Olympics from either contracting or passing on HIV are placing close to a half-million condoms in hotel rooms.

Jin also said that the government had enlisted a small army of volunteers to promote ways of preventing HIV/AIDS transmission during the games. The volunteers are handing out more than 250,000 health pamphlets at the Olympics.

“Now 180 college students and 500 community volunteers are ready to publicize AIDS-related knowledge,” Jin told Xinhua. “We have opened 40 clinics in Beijing’s 18 districts and counties to offer free HIV tests and AIDS counseling.”

Last month, the United Nations AIDS agency released a report showing the number of new cases of HIV/AIDS is rising in China, with about 700,000 currently diagnosed. Some international health authorities, however, say the figure actually could be 10 times that number.

China has had a checkered past in dealing with HIV/AIDS.

In April, in advance of the Olympics, Hu Jia, a leading HIV/AIDS campaigner and civil rights advocate, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on subversion charges. A number of Web sites dealing with AIDS issues also were closed.

Last year, the government began enlisting gay bars in Beijing to educate people about safe sex.  The government said that the number of men who have sex with men who are contracting HIV has steadily grown over the previous three years.

Yet Henan province, in central China, barred AIDS activists from holding a meeting to discuss ways of educating the public about the virus.