A million Americans now living with the AIDS virus and blacks account for 47 percent of HIV cases

Jun 14 2005

According to the U.S. Government more than a million Americans are currently living with the AIDS virus.

This latest estimate is a combination of good and bad news, reflecting on the one hand the success of drugs that keep more people alive, but highlighting on the other the failure of the government to control the AIDS epidemic by 2005.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated in December 2003, that between 1,039,000 and 1,185,000 people in the United States were living with HIV. The previous estimate from 2002 showed that between 850,000 and 950,000 people had the AIDS virus.

Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, says this rise indicates that new drugs and therapies have allowed people infected with the virus to live longer, and while treatment advances have been a godsend to those living with the disease, it presents new challenges for prevention.

Back in the 1990s Dr. Robert Janssen of the CDC, pledged the government would "break the back" of the epidemic and cut in half the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections that have occurred every year since.

Previously CDC officials said the country's HIV infection rate was fairly stable and no new infection data would be available until next year.

However Dr. Carlos del Rio, an Emory University professor of medicine, says that recent outbreaks of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases in major cities around the country imply that new infections may be as high as 60,000 cases a year, rather than the government estimate of 40,000.

Del Rio says the figures are a reflection of a failure in HIV prevention in the U.S., and the inadequate resources allocated towards tackling HIV prevention. He also says and that experts have placed too much focus on abstinence or condom use to stop the spread of the virus.

Terje Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People Living With AIDS, also agrees that reaching the 1 million mark is "a sign of both victory and failure.

It has always been difficult for health officials to estimate the number of Americans with HIV , and this year's figures are believed to be the most accurate ever.

The CDC and other agencies generally agreed in the 90's that between 600,000 and 900,000 people had the virus and previous estimates, as high as 1.5 million people, were later thought to be too high. For example, the CDC estimated in 1986 that between 1 million and 1.5 million people had HIV. In 1987, that was revised to 945,000 to 1.4 million and was refined in 1990 to 800,000 to 1.2 million.

The CDC's believes, according to the latest estimates, that blacks account for 47 percent of HIV cases; gay and bisexual men make up 45 percent of those living with the virus that causes AIDS.

In 2003, the rates of AIDS cases were 58 per 100,000 in the black population, 10 per 100,000 Hispanics, 6 per 100,000 whites, 8 per 100,000 American Indian/Alaska native population, and 4 per 100,000 Asian/Pacific Islanders.

The CDC also cautions that the demographics may soon change because heterosexual blacks, women and others infected after having high-risk sex, such as with someone with HIV, an injection-drug user or a man who has sex with other men, now account for a larger proportion of those living with HIV than those who are living with full blown AIDS.