The Chinese Ministry of Health said Thursday that 389 people died and about 190,000 cases were reported of 22 types of regularly monitored infectious diseases in February.

    Among the 27 types of infectious diseases under the ministry´s regular surveillance, the five absent ones in February were plague, poliomyelitis, SARS, human infection of high pathogenic bird flu and diphtheria, the Ministry said.

    The five most prevalent diseases were tuberculosis, hepatitis B,gonorrhea, dysentery and measles. They accounted for 86.62 percentof the total incidences.

    The top five most deadly diseases were rabies, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis and AIDS, which caused 82.52 percent of deaths, the ministry said.

    Compared with January, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis replaced hemorrhagic fever to be one of the top five killers and measles took place of syphilis among the five most common.

    Infectious diseases in China are classified into three categories by the country´s law on prevention of communicable diseases. Among the three categories, the first two categories included 27 types of disease in the ministry´s regular surveillance report.