VATICAN CITY -- Abstaining from sex is the best way of preventing the spread of AIDS, a Vatican official in charge of health issues said Wednesday.

"Although speaking about chastity these days may sound ridiculous, the (Roman Catholic) Church continues to view abstinence as the most efficient way of preventing (the spread of) AIDS," DPA quoted Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health and Pastoral Care as saying.

Addressing reporters ahead of a November 7-9 International Conference on Catholic Health Care Institutions, Archbishop Barragan said three million people had died of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome last year. "The church is often accused of favoring such deaths by condemning the use of condoms," he said, "but the truth is that modern society, which is based on pleasure and well-being, has lost touch with the idea of personal responsibility and views sex as merely a pleasure rather than an act that should lead to procreation."

Archbishop Barragan had made similar statements two years ago, when he said chastity should occur "both inside and outside marriage".

In 1994, Pope John Paul II sent Vatican diplomats to disrupt a world population conference in Cairo which had been called to advocate widespread birth control.