BEIJING -- Beijing's health bureau has ordered hotels to stock condoms in every room in response to a spike in new HIV infections in the Chinese capital.

The official Xinhua News Agency reports that Beijing registered 973 new cases of HIV/AIDS in the first 10 months of the year, a 54-per-cent rise against the same period last year.

That brought the city's total to 4,663 cases since 1985, Xinhua said. Among those cases, 171 were foreigners, 964 were Beijing permanent residents and 3,524 were from other parts of China.

In recent years, China has pushed for greater condom availability in public places like karaoke clubs and restaurants as part of a more candid approach to its AIDS problem.

China had scaled back its estimate of the number of people infected with HIV to 650,000 in 2005, the last year for which figures are available.