Kampala  - AIDS has killed 1.6 million people in Uganda since it was first diagnosed in the country in 1982, health officials said Tuesday.

"The deaths have been accumulating since 1982 and maybe the figure could reach three million in the future," Dr Alex Opio, assistant commissioner for national diseases control in the health ministry, told reporters.

The East African nation has registered increases in new AIDS infections and deaths, which health officials partly attribute to complacency and population growth.

Before 2000 around 80,000 people were being infected with AIDS annually, compared to an annual rate of 130,000 by 2007.

A total of 2.6 million people have been infected with the disease since the first positive case, health ministry officials told a news conference. (dpa)