New Delhi, November 4 : China's rapidly developing economy is the driving force behind boosting number of syphilis cases over the past decade in the country, a senior public health official has said.

Xiang-Sheng Chen said the country witnessed a tenfold increase in the sexually transmitted disease that was virtually eradicated in the 1960s.

Chen added cases were growing 30 percent a year owing to prostitution, mass migration of workers to the cities and poor health care systems, reports the China Daily.

The deputy director of China''s National Center for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Control further revealed that syphilis was particularly rampant in the southeast that is witnessing a booming economy though not without inequality.

Chen made his comments in the World Health Organization''s monthly bulletin. (ANI)