AIDS data may suggest a resurgent epidemic

WASHINGTON -- Young gay men are becoming infected with the AIDS virus at a rate not seen since the early years of the epidemic, federal health officials reported Thursday.

Just a few days short of the 20th anniversary of the first reports of AIDS, the data "may suggest a resurgent epidemic" in gay men, which was the population in which the disease was first detected, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

A survey of gay men in their 20s in six cities found that 4.4 percent were becoming infected each year in the late 1990s. Among blacks in the sample, 14.7 percent were becoming infected each year.

This pace of new infections, which is called the "incidence rate," is similar to what occurred in Eastern and Southern Africa in the early 1990s, where one-fifth to one-third of all adults are infected with AIDS.

Preliminary data from the same survey found that 32 percent of young black gays were infected; 14 percent of Hispanics, and 7 percent of whites. That prevalence of infection would rise even higher if the pace of new infections continues unchanged.

At a news conference, Helene Gayle, head of CDC's AIDS programs, called the new infection rate among black gay men "extraordinarily high." She said the findings "underscore the need to reach each generation of gay and bisexual men early, and to sustain those efforts as they age."

It is not known whether the incidence rate for the American population as a whole is rising or falling, Gayle said.

Since the disease that was eventually named AIDS was first detected in June 1981, more than 1 million Americans have been infected with the virus, and about 450,000 have died.

About 323,000 people are now living with AIDS, which is the stage of the infection when the virus has caused significant damage to the immune system, CDC officials said. The number of people reaching that stage peaked in the mid-1990s, and has declined steadily since then, as effective antiviral therapy has allowed thousands of patients to slow or stop the damage caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).