AIDS - HIV - Mexico - USA

US says HIV rate higher, ahead of AIDS summit

Sunday 03 August 2008

Authorities acknowledged a US health study that revealed that HIV infections were 40% higher than thought. This comes just ahead of the 17th world AIDS conference, in Mexico.

US health authorities acknowledged Saturday that they have substantially underestimated the number of new HIV infections in the country, in a study showing that the epidemic is worse than previously thought.
  
About 56,300 people were infected with the virus that causes AIDS in 2006, a figure 40 percent higher than the previous estimate of 40,000 new infections a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
  
"This new picture reveals that the HIV epidemic is -- and has been -- worse than previously known and underscores the challenges in confronting this disease," Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.
  
The CDC said new technology allowed it to establish a more precise estimate of the epidemic.
  
"These data, which are based on new laboratory technology developed by CDC, provide the clearest picture to date of the US HIV epidemic, and unfortunately we are far from winning the battle against this preventable disease," said CDC Director Julie Gerberding.
  
"We as a nation have to come together to focus our efforts on expanding the prevention programs we know are effective," she said.
  
The study found that the annual number of new infections was never as low as 40,000. While new infections increased in the last 1990s, they have been roughly stable since then.
  
"While the level of HIV incidence is alarming, stability in recent years suggests that prevention efforts are having an impact," said Richard Wolitski, acting director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.
  
The study also found that gay and bisexual men as well as and African American men and women are the groups most affected by HIV.
  
The new estimate found that 53 percent of new infections occurred in gay and bisexual men, while heterosexuals accounted for 31 percent of them and injection drug users for 12 percent.
  
African Americans, who make up 13 percent of the US population, accounted for 45 percent of the new infections in 2006. The infection rate among blacks was seven times higher than among whites -- 83.7 out of 100,000 people compared to 11.5 out of 100,000.
  
The study found some encouraging signs of progress as new infections have dropped among both injecting drug users and heterosexuals.

MEXICO AIDS SUMMIT

Several thousand brightly-dressed activists marched through Mexico City on Saturday protesting discrimination against those with the HIV virus ahead of the first world AIDS conference in Latin America.
  
A gay Mexican wrestler in a mask and tights, women dressed up as skeletons, African campaigners in tribal costumes and children joined the first International March against Stigma, Discrimination and Homophobia, organized by homosexual and transsexual groups.
  
It took place a day before the start of the six-day International AIDS conference, which some 22,000 scientists, policymakers and grassroots workers are expected to attend.
  
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova also took part in Saturday's march, the first time a member of the government attended an event supporting sexual diversity.
  
"I'm showing my respect for sexual diversity and all forms of living together," he said, amid booing from demonstrators who accuse him of not doing enough to fight homophobia and AIDS.
  
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former US president Bill Clinton and Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, are among those expected at the conference.
  
A 12-year-old HIV-positive Honduran, Keren Dunaway Gonzalez, is due to represent the 33 million people now carrying the AIDS virus at Sunday's opening ceremony.
  
"When I speak to all these people, I'll ask them to support the fight against this illness, to give us medicine because it's expensive and to campaign more so children don't get infected," she told AFP.
  
AIDS deaths in 2007 fell to some two million but, despite new drugs that have, for some, transformed the human immunodeficiency virus from a death sentence to a manageable disease, experts say infection rates are rising in many countries.