The HIV infection pattern amongst cancer patients and voluntary blood donors was studied at an oncology centre in South India. The study period was from May 1991 to March 1994. A total of 18,260 subjects were screened for HIV infection. Of which 14,266 were voluntary blood donors and 3994 were cancer patients. The HIV infection rate amongst voluntary blood donors and cancer patients was 0.042% (6/14266) and 0.4% (16/3994) giving a seropositivity rate of 0.42 and 4.0 per 1000 respectively.