WASHINGTON, Dec 1, 2007 (AFP) - Annual infections from the AIDS virus in the United States run 20-50 percent higher than official estimates, US media reported Saturday.
The US government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has new data that pushes sharply upwards its annual estimates of new HIV infections to 55,000-60,000 from 40,000, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal both reported.
The new data could lead to the CDC officially revising higher its infection estimates, the papers said, citing unnamed CDC sources.
The Wall Street Journal said that Robert Janssen, director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, acknowledged the figures but said they could change after a critical review by other experts.
The new data could be released next year, it said.
For years the CDC pegged the annual number of new infections by HIV, which causes AIDS, at 40,000. The higher new estimates arose out of a new blood testing technique that can pinpoint HIV infections that are only five months old, as opposed to earlier tests which could not easily differentiate old and new infections.
The Post said that the higher infection data could reflect in part a real rise in infections in recent years, citing as an example 33 US states which had shown a 13 percent climb in HIV infections among homosexual men in the four years to 2005.
The Journal said an upward revision of new infection rates could call into question the efficacy of US prevention measures.
In 2001 the CDC set a target of halving new infections to about 20,000 a year by 2005, it said.
Janssen told the Journal that goal had not been reached because "adequate resources... were not made available."
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