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U.S. Aids Rate On The Rise

Posted on: Monday, 4 August 2008, 09:30 CDT

The U.S. government found that 40 percent more people are being infected with the AIDS virus every year, compared to what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously projected.

New estimates show that at least 56,000 people annually become infected with the AIDS virus.

The CDC stressed that actual infection rates have not risen; higher estimates stemmed from better methods of measuring newly diagnosed infections and generalizing those to the general population.

"CDC's first estimates from this system reveal that the HIV epidemic is -- and has been -- worse than previously known. Results indicate that approximately 56,300 new HIV infections occurred in the United States in 2006," the CDC said in a statement.

"This figure is roughly 40 percent higher than CDC's former estimate of 40,000 infections per year, which was based on limited data and less precise methods."

AIDS activist groups said the study revealed the United States is not doing enough to fight the epidemic.

"We need to develop programs that specifically target those most at risk, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and men who have sex with men," Kevin Robert Frost, chief executive officer of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, said in a statement.

The CDC said the epidemic has been stable since the late 1990s, "though the number of new HIV infections remains unacceptably high."

"The analysis shows that new infections peaked in the mid-1980s at approximately 130,000 infections per year and reached a low of about 50,000 in the early 1990s," it said.

Dr. Kevin Fenton, who heads the CDC's AIDS branch, said 15,000 to 18,000 Americans die every year of AIDS.

"The data really confirms that there is a severe impact of this epidemic among gay and bisexual men in the United States ... as well as black men and women," Fenton said.

According to the data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, black Americans are seven times more likely to be infected than whites.

"The reality is that it is a wake-up call for all of us," Fenton agreed. "There are things that you and I can do to stop the disease -- encourage others to use condoms consistently and correctly, abstain from sex."

Twenty-five percent of those infected with the virus do not realize it, and end up passing it to others. Worries of being socially stigmatized have stopped people from being tested.

AIDS activist groups have been pushing the CDC to release its numbers. However, Fenton said the CDC's numbers have been undergoing peer review, which includes experts-recruited by the journal's editors- scrutinizing the numbers during a months-long process.

"This improved estimate means little if it does not serve as the spark to inflame our collective anger about the deadly neglect of an acute emergency," Mark McLaurin of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project said in a statement.

"This week, President Bush signed a new global AIDS bill, but persistent under-funding and restrictions here at home tie our hands in combating the epidemic in our own backyard."

The president signed the Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief or PEPFAR program into law this week. It’s a $48 billion, five-year package to help treat and prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria around the world.

Globally, 2 million people die from Aids every year, and another 33 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.

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On the Net:

• CDC
• American Foundation for AIDS Research
• Journal of the American Medical Association
• Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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