ULAN BATOR -- The number of people infected with HIV in Mongolia rose to 252 after one case was registered in February, the country's National Statistical Office said in a report Wednesday.

More than half of the HIV patients are between 20 and 44 years old and about 99 percent of the infections were sexually transmitted, according to the report.

The first case of HIV infection in Mongolia was registered in 1992. Since then, 40 people have died from this disease in the Asian country with a population of more than three million.