Havana, May 11 (EFE).- Cuba had a total of 9,304 diagnosed HIV and AIDS cases as of December 2007, with the majority of the patients being males, a high-level health official said.

Some 80 percent of the carriers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are men, and 84 percent of these men are homosexuals, National Center for the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV director Rosaida Ochoa said.

The health official discussed the island's AIDS situation at a press conference Saturday in Havana ahead of the celebration on May 17 of International Day Against Homophobia.

As of October 2007, Cuba had 9,039 people infected with HIV, of whom 3,427 were sick and more than 3,000 others were receiving antiretroviral medications to fight the disease.

Four men are infected with HIV/AIDS for every woman who has contracted the disease in Cuba, leading health officials to focus this year's prevention campaign on men who have sex with other men, while still maintaining the program that seeks to prevent the disease's spread among women, Ochoa said.

A study conducted last year by the National Statistics Office found that HIV carriers experienced greater social rejection because of their sexual orientation than from being infected with the disease, the health official said.

In response to this situation, the 2008 "AIDS prevention campaigns really do not discuss the issue of AIDS specifically, instead working on this social vulnerability," Ochoa said, adding that the goal was to "educate the population on sexual identity."

"Everything we can do to educate (people) about sexual diversity directly influences the HIV/AIDS epidemic," the health official said.

The National Center for the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV and the National Sexual Education Center are working together on a campaign to promote tolerance of sexual minorities in Cuba in an effort to "reduce the psychological and social vulnerability" of these groups, Ochoa said. EFE