Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc.; Tuesday June 16 5:28 PM EDT
But the study also found heterosexual transmission of the disease, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, increasing among young women, particularly young black women.
The report from the National Cancer Institute used a trace-back method to calculate the likely number of young people infected with the AIDS virus in the years 1988 and 1993.
The researchers estimated that 50 percent fewer white men aged 18 to 27 were infected in 1993 than in 1988, with most of the drop credited to declines in transmission through homosexual contact.
But the number of infected young minority men was roughly the same in both years, with rising rates of new infection through heterosexual contact offsetting declines in infections from intravenous drug abuse and homosexual contact, it said.
The study, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, also said the number of infected black women aged 18 to 27 rose by more than 60 percent between the two years, due to heterosexual transmission of the disease. What the findings imply for the present cannot be calculated but Philip Rosenberg, one of the authors, said new infections from homosexual contact and injection drug use may have continued in the ensuing years.
"If fewer people have the disease, there is less chance of encountering an infected person, which tends to slow the spread of the disease," he said. The authors said they were particularly concerned about the high rate of heterosexual transmission of the disease in young minority populations.
"Most HIV-infected young people -- about two-thirds -- are black of Hispanic," Rosenberg said, a figure far out of proportion to the 27 percent of the population they make up in the age groups studied.
The authors said the study was the most detailed yet of infection trends among the first generations to enter young adulthood facing the threat of AIDS virus infection. What became the AIDS pandemic was first recognized in 1978.
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