 |
|
|
|
|
U.S. Reports Rise in HIV Cases
CDC sees 5% increase since 1999; gays, blacks, Latinos at most jeopardy
By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
|
| | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26 (HealthDayNews) -- The most extensive statistics of their kind suggest that the number of people diagnosed with the AIDS virus in the United States has risen by 5 percent since 1999, with gay men, blacks and Latinos most at risk.
For the most part, HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- continues to mostly strike homosexual men and heterosexual women. Six out of every 10 infected men are gay or bisexual, while 70 percent of the infected women apparently got the disease through sex with men, according to a new government report issued Wednesday.
Text Continues Below
AIDS infection rates are notoriously difficult to track. States routinely report cases of full-blown AIDS to the federal government, but the statistics provide no information about the rate of new infections because it can take infected people years to develop the disease. The time lag is even longer because powerful drugs are keeping AIDS at bay in HIV-positive patients.
Until recently, states had a crazy quilt of different laws about collecting data on people newly diagnosed with HIV infection. However, federal laws now require states to report HIV infections along with AIDS cases.
The new analysis of HIV infections, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the most wide-ranging in the history of the AIDS epidemic. It examines 29 states that tracked the infections from 1999-2002, but many large states -- including California, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York -- aren't included. And those diagnosed may have been infected years ago.
Even so, the statistics provide a useful glimpse at the current state of the epidemic, says Dr. Ronald O. Valdiserri, a deputy director in charge of sexually transmitted disease studies at the CDC.
Federal researchers analyzed reports of 102,590 people diagnosed with HIV from 1999-2002.
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >>
|
Copyright © 2003 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 11/26/2003
|
|
SOURCES: Ronald O. Valdiserri, M.D., deputy director, HIV, STD and TB prevention center, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta; Nov. 26, 2003, statement, Julie Gerberding, M.D., director, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Nov. 28, 2003, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
|
.gif)
