At least five people have been accidentally infected with HIV at a hospital in China after a doctor reused dirty needles during treatment.
The doctor at the Chinese medicine hospital in the eastern city of Hangzhou is under criminal investigation, according to the local health authority.
The government statement said a "serious medical incident" had occurred at the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, reported the South China Morning Post.
The AIDS-causing virus is believed to have spread when the doctor violated procedure by failing to dispose of syringes after use, transferring the infection from one HIV positive patient to at least five others.
Internet users in China reacted with shock to the news, stoking long-standing fears HIV could be spread by poor medical practice.
However, most media reports and social media posts published in Chinese about the incident were swiftly censored, according to AFP.
Cases of HIV/Aids rose sharply in China after a major scandal in Henan province in the 1990s, when farmers who sold their blood contracted HIV through poor safety practices, reports BBC.
Donors' collected blood was pooled together and the lucrative plasma removed. The remaining blood, now cross-contaminated, was then injected back into the donors so they could donate again soon.
For years officials tried to cover up the problem and it is still not clear how many were infected.
China said in 2001 that between 30,000 and 50,000 people had contracted HIV through the blood-selling scandal, but other officials have since suggested the figure was much higher.
The scandal did help highlight the ways in which HIV could be passed, and rules surrounding blood donation and transfusions have since improved, but illegal practises remain.
In 2006, a group of 19 people sued a hospital in Heilongjiang over transfusions from which they contracted HIV.
In a recent report, China said it had 501,000 reported cases of HIV/Aids by the end of 2014. It gave no estimate of unreported cases.
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