Study Finds Flaws in HIV Statistics
Number of New Cases Was Vastly Underreported

By Tim Posada
August 7, 2008

New research recently released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has discovered that the rate of HIV infections per year is 45 percent higher than previously thought. The CDC announced on August 2 at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, that an estimated 56,000 people were infected with HIV in 2006, as opposed to the originally estimated 40,000 -- a number that has remained consistent over the years.

"This new estimate helps us have a better picture of new HIV infection in the U.S.," said Jennifer Ruth, spokesperson for the CDC. "The analysis did show stability in recent years at a level stabilizing in the late ‘90s."

The new estimate focuses on when individuals are infected with HIV, as opposed to when they are diagnosed. The estimate was also published in the HIV/AIDS issue of Medical Association", and released at the conference. The estimate was recorded through a new national surveillance system, which can decipher between older infections and those infected in the past five months.

"The revised estimate has been known to us for a while now," said Brian Risley, program manager for the Treatment and Education Program of the AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), and co-chair of the Viral Hepatitis Coalition for Los Angeles County. "Forty thousand didn’t seem accurate when doctors in the L.A. area were reporting higher rates. All this will help us learn how to discover what does and doesn’t work, in regards to prevention."

In a separate analysis, the CDC discovered that HIV infections have declined sharply since the mid-1980s, when infections were at an all time high of 130,000. While numbers are down from the 1980s, they have been gradually increasing since the late 1990s.

"With the new numbers, we have to think again," said Whitney Engeran, director of the Public Health Division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). "There needs to be a much greater emphasis on testing. Being in treatment and knowing your status are the best ways we know to getting control of this disease."

In response to the new numbers, AHF is calling on the government to appropriate $200 million to test 10 million people. Engeran said the emphasis should be on making HIV/AIDS testing a regular part of life. For APLA, Risley proposes that the government needs to create a national AIDS strategy, with a greater emphasis on prevention. "The U.S. requires other countries to have a national AIDS strategy, yet ours is much more disorganized," Risley said. "Prevention needs to be the goal, it works. The CDC cited 49 effective intervention programs. We need testing, but we also need prevention."

The findings did indicate a reduction of infection among drug users and heterosexuals, although there has been a steady increase among gay and bisexual men in risky behavior, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV diagnoses, since the early 1990s. The new estimate revealed that each year, approximately 53 percent of people infected are men who have sex with men, 31 percent are heterosexuals, and 12 percent are drug users. The infection rate among African American men and women is approximately seven times higher than Caucasians and three times higher than Hispanics.

"This new picture reveals that the HIV epidemic is, and has been, worse than previously known and underscores the challenges in confronting this disease," said Kevin Fenton, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention for the CDC, in a statement. Along with HIV testing, APLA provides multiple preventative programs in specialty areas, from crystal methamphetamine to programs for African Americans. For more information, visit the website http://www.apla.org.

© 2008 Bevery Press