CDC reports 10% increase in people living with AIDS
AIDS deaths continue to decline, but more slowly
The latest AIDS statistics offer stark proof that the disease is on the rebound.
AIDS deaths, which declined by 42% from 1996 to 1997, decreased by 20% from 1997 to 1998, according to data from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Preven tion. Plus, the total number of people who have AIDS increased by 10% between 1997 and 1998, climbing from 269,777 to 297,137. The cumulative total of AIDS cases in the United States and its territories through June 1999 was 711,344.
The estimated number of AIDS deaths fell from the 1995 peak of about 50,000 to a little more than 17,000 in 1998.
The CDC’s data through the middle of 1999 show a decline in the number of AIDS cases and annual infection rate through June 1999. For the period of July 1997 to June 1998, the number of new AIDS cases reported was 54,140 and the rate was 19.9 per 100,000 population. For the July 1998 to June 1999 period, the number of new AIDS cases reported was 47,083 and the rate was 17.1 per 100,000 population. These numbers also show a continuation of the decline in the number of new AIDS cases, although the decline was slower in the most recent period.
While AIDS deaths continue to decline, the slowing of the decline indicates that much of the benefit of protease inhibitors and other new AIDS treatments already has been realized, according to the CDC’s HIV/AIDS "Surveillance Report" in October.
"We’ve always known the drugs don’t work for everyone and they aren’t a cure for anyone," says Daniel Zingale, executive director of AIDS Action in Washington, DC. "What we’re discovering now is the long-term effectiveness of the drugs may be even less than what we hoped, and this takes us back to the need to make prevention a priority and redouble our efforts to find the next generation of effective treatment."
Zingale says these prevention efforts have to be targeted at the poor and minority populations who are disproportionately infected with HIV.
Black Americans, for example, have been becoming infected with HIV and are dying in greater numbers and at higher rates than other Americans, a trend that began in 1996. For example, in 1998, blacks accounted for nearly 50% of AIDS deaths, compared with 32% white and 18% Hispanic. (See estimated AIDS death charts, insert p. 2.)
Also, the decline in AIDS deaths between 1997 and 1998 was even smaller among black Americans than among whites. While white Americans had a 22% decline in deaths between 1997 and 1998, blacks had only a 17% decline in deaths.
And white and black Americans had this striking difference in AIDS death rates despite the fact that in 1998, the number of people living with AIDS was nearly equal between the two groups, with 116,445 whites and 118,525 blacks. Two years earlier, 42% of AIDS deaths involved blacks, 38% involved whites, and Hispanics were 18%.
CDC data also show the trend of greater numbers of women becoming infected with HIV. From July 1998 through June 1999, 32% of the adult HIV cases involved women, and 77% of these women were black or Hispanic.
Through the first half of 1999, the number of people living with AIDS dropped to 288,261. The CDC determines this number by subtracting the estimated cumulative number of deaths in people with AIDS from the estimated cumulative number of people with AIDS. (See chart of HIV infection and AIDS cases, insert p. 1.)
New York and California led the nation in AIDS cases, with 132,086 and 113,025, respectively.
The CDC data on people living with HIV infection, which come from 32 states with confidential HIV reporting, totaled 104,784 through June 1999.
In 1999, we got reality’
All the latest data on AIDS prove that protease inhibitors and other antiretroviral drugs were never the panacea that many AIDS advocates and HIV-infected individuals hoped they would be, Zingale notes.
"You could say that in 1996 and 1997 we got hope, and then in 1999, we got reality," he adds. "That’s what the CDC’s latest statistics represent for me."
The latest numbers also show that men who have sex with men remains the highest-risk group, with fully 33% of all HIV infection cases (including only people who have not developed AIDS) being men who have sex with men. The next biggest risk category involves injection drug users, which account for 18,068 or 16% of all HIV cases and 21% of HIV cases among women. Heterosexual contact, accounting for 17,558 of cases, was the exposure route for HIV infection in 40% of the women, 7% of men, and 16% of the total. About 30% of people with HIV reported no risk factor.
The 1,956 HIV infection cases among children were the result of exposure from an HIV-infected mother 86% of the time. Another 5% of the pediatric cases had hemophilia or a coagulation disorder, and a small number had received blood transfusions. Seven percent of these cases had no reported risk factor.
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