The 42-year-old, identified only as Mr T, died Dec 27 at Singapore's centre for communicable disease, the Sunday Times said.

He had been diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome a year ago and the stigma that came with the disease -- which is normally acquired through sexual intercourse or intravenous drug use -- had led him to live in parks and public places in this affluent city stat.

Rejected by family and friends, his last known home was the corner of a disused shopping centre.

His condition, publicised in the Straits Times earlier this month, led Singapore's ministry of health rule that nursing homes, hospices and community hospitals can admit people suffering from AIDS.

Previously, these institutions were uncertain on whether they should shelter people suffering from the AIDS on the grounds it is a communicable disease.

The ministry also said that health care institutions will get the same subsidies for AIDS patients as they do for their other patients.

Activists have complained that a growing numbers of AIDS sufferers in prosperous Singapore were being left homeless and without treatment because of discrimination. Mr T did not live long enough to take up the offer of a woman executive of a software firm promising him a room in her highrise flat.

AIDS, which has no known cure, breaks down the body's immune system and is almost always fatal.