Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - August 3, 1999
The agency's quarterly update said 14 people were diagnosed with AIDS in the first half of 1999, compared with 33 who were diagnosed in all of 1998. The report also said that 11 people died last year from the disease.
The number of new AIDS cases fell from 112 in 1995 to 49 in 1996. The number of cases dropped again in 1997 to 44, then to 33 in 1998. The number of deaths caused by complications from the disease slid from 70 in 1995 to 11 last year. No one died from the disease in the first six months of 1999, the report said.
The report said 877 Mainers, 783 of them men, have AIDS. It said 574 contracted the disease through sex with infected men. Another 101 people contracted the disease by sharing infected needles while injecting drugs, while 70 people said they contracted it through heterosexual sex, the report said.
Maine has fewer cases of AIDS compared to other states, Mark Griswald of the state health bureau said.
"We're about half of the national average of cases per 100,000 people," he said.
Griswald said the AIDS data in the report covers only those diagnoses made in Maine. It also does not report how many people have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Registered nurse Sonya Nadeau at St. Mary's Regional Hospital said dealing with AIDS has become increasingly easier since the late 1980s. Nadeau helps run the AIDS Project program for those suffering from the disease in Androscoggin and Oxford counties.
"People are living with HIV and AIDS much, much longer," she said. "They are living a fairly normal life, other than taking a lot of pills."
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