Singapore, facing a rise in AIDS cases, is considering making it compulsory for pregnant women to be screened for HIV/AIDS, an official said on Saturday.

“If all mothers had been tested for HIV, and treatment started for HIV positive mothers, the risk of the baby having AIDS would be reduced from 25 percent to 2 percent,” said Balaji Sadasivan, senior minister of state for health, at the fourth Singapore AIDS Conference.

Although Singapore has one of the lowest levels of HIV infection in Asia, the number of new infections hit a record high with 257 cases reported in the first 10 months of this year, more than the 242 new cases reported for all of 2003.

Sadasivan said his ministry would focus on educating the public on HIV/AIDS prevention.

The campaign will focus on four areas: encouraging monogamy, the importance of condom use in casual sex, frequent testing for HIV for individuals with multiple sex partners and highlighting that it is a criminal offence to spread AIDS deliberately.

While most of the new HIV cases involved heterosexual men, the Health Ministry said HIV infection among gays has seen a surge over the last year, with 77 cases diagnosed in the first 10 months of this year against 54 for all of last year.

A gay group said a law banning gay sex in Singapore harmed efforts to educate gays about the dangers of unsafe sex.

“Since gay sex is illegal, how then can any agency or organization in Singapore promote safe sex among men ... without being complicit in abetting illegal activity?” Stuart Koe, chief executive officer of Asian gay group Fridae said in a statement on the group’s Web site fridae.com.

The United Nations warned earlier this month that Asia-Pacific risks an AIDS crisis similar in scale to Africa’s unless governments across the region step up efforts to control the relentless spread of the killer disease.

Singapore has recorded a total of 2,332 HIV infections to date, of whom 874 have died, 564 have full-blown AIDS and 894 show no symptoms.