BEIJING - A total of 23,377 people died as a result of infectious diseases on the Chinese mainland in 2018, official data showed.

According to the National Health Commission, there were about 7.77 million cases of infectious diseases reported on the mainland in 2018.

The commission said that 28 cases of cholera were reported and no cases of the plague were reported last year. No fatalities caused by these diseases have been reported.

Cholera and the plague are classified as Class A infectious diseases, the most serious classification in China's Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases.

More than 3 million cases were classified as Class B infectious diseases, of which resulted in 23,174 deaths. Viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea and bacterial and amoebic dysentery accounted for 92.2 percent of these cases.

Category C diseases caused 203 deaths in 2018. Foot and mouth disease, infectious diarrhea, influenza, epidemic mumps and acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis were the most prevalent in this category, accounting for 99.8 percent of the cases.