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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> Their results show that blacks continue to account for more than half the diagnoses (55 percent).
They also show that the overall diagnosis rate rose by 5.1 percent during the three-year period, but jumped by 26 percent among Latinos, 17 percent among gay and bisexual men, and 8 percent among whites.
While the Latino increase appears highest, Hispanics overall have 11.5 percent of the diagnosed cases. Men who have sex with men made up four out of every 10 diagnoses. Thirty-five percent of patients were apparently infected through heterosexual sex.
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Combined with reports that syphilis rates are going up among gay men, the diagnosis rates paint a dismal picture about the future, Valdiserri says.
"For the past few years, the CDC has been very concerned about a number of indicators suggesting that we might be headed toward [an] increase of HIV among men who have sex with men. We've tried to sound this alarm repeatedly," he says.
And the federal statistics are apparently incomplete in one other critical way.
"We also know that there are significant numbers of people, perhaps as many as 280,000, who are infected with HIV and don't even know it," Valdiserri says.
In a prepared statement Wednesday, CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding noted, "These new findings strongly support three key realities of today's epidemic: the HIV epidemic in this country is not over; more often than not the face of HIV in this country is black or Latino; and gay and bisexual men in several communities are facing a possible resurgence of HIV infection."
Health officials say tracking HIV cases is the best way to keep tabs on the epidemic. The number of AIDS deaths in the United States has actually gone down over the past several years, but that is because drugs are keeping people alive longer, not because fewer people are getting infected.
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