The true picture of AIDS in the U.S. yet to be revealed

Despite widespread reports in the U.S. media concerning the sharp rise in the number of annual infections from HIV/AIDS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is yet to confirm that is the case.

According to the CDC new data using updated and more accurate methods of estimating the scale of the infection may not be available until next year.

Activists along with many in the media are suggesting that the annual infections from the AIDS virus in the United States will in reality be 20-50 percent higher than any official estimate.

Many experts believe the new numbers will show that the number of people newly infected each year with the virus is 55,000 rather than 40,000.

Critics have called on the CDC to release the figures publicly in order to dispel suggestions that the information is being suppressed for political reasons.

Many activists suggest the rise in new infections is in part due to the failed policies of the Bush administration, including the promotion of 'abstinence-only' prevention messages and the failure to promote condom use.

Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation says the new information could be damaging to the image the Bush government wants to present.

Dr. Kevin Fenton, the CDC's top AIDS official says new technology which is able to distinguish recent from longstanding infections, will provide the clearest picture to date of new HIV infections in the United States but the new estimates have not yet been finalised.

The new data could say some, lead to the CDC officially raising its infection estimates, and the CDC too says the figures could change after a critical review by other experts.

The higher estimates are thought to be the result of new blood testing techniques that can pinpoint HIV infections that are only five months old, as opposed to earlier tests which could not easily differentiate old and new infections.

It was in 2001 that the CDC set a target of reducing new infections to about 20,000 a year by 2005 but that goal had not been reached because adequate resources say some, were not made available.

The CDC estimates that more than 1 million Americans are now infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS; just last month, the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS sharply revised downwards its own estimate of how many people globally have HIV, from close to 40 million people to 33 million.

UNAIDS says the news is both bad and good as the numbers reflect that AIDS prevention measures were working and more accurate methods were being used to estimate infection rates.