Surge in AIDS epidemic possible
Advertiser Staff and News Services
A steep nationwide drop in AIDS cases and deaths is over, prompting U.S. health officials to warn yesterday that the AIDS epidemic is poised to take off again in the United States.
"We either move forward or experience a resurgence of HIV in the U.S.," said Helene Gayle, director of AIDS prevention for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Just as ominous is a flurry of new studies showing steadily rising levels of high-risk sexual behavior among young gay men, according to research released at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.
The number of new AIDS cases reported each quarter fell from more than 20,000 in 1993 to about 10,000 in 1998. AIDS deaths fell from about 12,000 each quarter in 1994 to about 4,000 in 1998. But the figures have stabilized.
The decline has halted for a number of reasons, Gayle said. Some people delay getting tested for HIV, so they don't learn they are infected in time to obtain treatment. Moreover, AIDS drugs are difficult to take and often helpless against resistant strains of HIV, the AIDS virus. About 40 percent of people with AIDS lack access to appropriate treatment.
The trend is not yet apparent in Hawai'i, said Peter Whiticar, chief of the state STD/AIDS Prevention Branch. He said there were 164 new AIDS cases reported in 1998, 103 in 1999 and 109 in 2000. There were 35 new AIDS cases reported in the first half of this year.
Whiticar said Hawai'i has been aggressive in reaching HIV-positive people who are difficult to treat because of issues such as economics, race, substance abuse or mental illness. But he stressed the need for HIV prevention.
"There are many people — and particularly it appears young gay men — who may think that HIV is either over or it's a fairly lightweight, manageable illness," he said. "And that may be because they haven't actually seen people or lived with people that were dying with AIDS. This is really a big part of the prevention efforts these days to help them realize ... that AIDS is still a very serious disease, even with the medications that are now available."
A new study in Seattle found a sharp increase in the number of HIV-positive gay men reporting unprotected anal sex, from 10 percent in 1998 to 20 percent in 2000.
And a study of mostly low-income black women in Atlanta found that almost half had not used a condom in their most recent sexal encounter, and 60 percent did not know their partner's HIV status.
There was also good news — including an 84 percent decline in the number of infants infected with HIV by their mothers. Just 156 cases were diagnosed in 1999, vs. 901 in 1992. And researchers reported that the number of HIV-positive drug abusers in New York has fallen by more than half since the 1980s. This study of 11,000 drug users found that their HIV infection rate has fallen from 50 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 2000.
USA Today, the Associated Press and Advertiser Staff Writer Lynda Arakawa contributed to this report.
