Singapore faces an AIDS epidemic, with the number of new infections diagnosed expected to hit a rate of 1,000 a year by 2010, a health official said.

Homosexuals and heterosexual men who have casual sex in other countries were two groups that needed attention, said Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan.

The number of new cases of HIV/AIDS in Singapore has been increasing and is set to cross 300 a year in 2004, he said in a speech.

If this continues unchecked, Singapore may have 15,000 people with HIV/AIDS by 2010.

"The number of new (HIV/AIDS) cases diagnosed appears to double every 3 to 4 years. At this rate of increase, we can expect more than a thousand new cases to be diagnosed in the year 2010," he said.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are about 4,000 people in Singapore with HIV, and less than half of them have been diagnosed, he said.

Sadasivan pointed to the sharp rise in new AIDS infections among homosexuals, from 54 cases last year to 77 in the first 10 months of this year.

"This recent explosion of cases is due to the promiscuous and unsafe lifestyle advocated and practiced by some gays," he said.

He urged the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) to draw up measures to tackle the problem, including border screening of people in high-risk groups.

"If the CDC can screen high-risk Singaporeans at our borders when they return, we may be able to protect Singapore women from catching AIDS from these men," he added.

Most HIV and AIDS patients are treated at the CDC. As at the end of September, there were 972 reported HIV patients and 1,334 reported AIDS cases in the city-state, a Ministry of Health spokeswoman said.