GENEVA - A senior Chinese public health official says the tenfold growth in the number of syphilis cases over the past decade in China has been driven by the country's rapid economic growth.

Xiang-Sheng Chen says the sexually transmitted disease re-emerged in the 1980s after being virtually eradicated for two decades.

Chen says prostitution, worker migration from the countryside to cities and poor health care systems means cases are now increasing 30 per cent a year.

Chen, the deputy director of China's National Center for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Control, says syphilis is particularly prevalent in the southeast, where the economy is booming but inequality is also the greatest.

His comments appeared Tuesday in the World Health Organization's monthly bulletin.