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 - Wednesday October 7, 10:02 pm Eastern Time
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
The infant mortality rate and the murder rate are also at a new low, the report from the National Center for Health Statistics found.
Preliminary statistics for 1997 indicate the death rate from AIDS dropped by 47 percent from 1996, taking the condition from the eighth most common cause of death to the 14th.
Among people 25 to 44 years old, the group hardest hit by HIV infection, AIDS dropped to the fifth-leading cause of death in 1997 from the leading cause in 1995.
"Today's report is very good news for the nation, and the tremendous decline in AIDS deaths is particularly striking," Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said in a statement.
"These figures mean that new treatments have been very effective in extending the lives of people who already have HIV infection -- but they do not mean we have significantly reduced HIV transmission," Shalala added.
AIDS groups welcomed the news.
"The decline in AIDS deaths reported by the CDC is compelling and exciting news," said Rene Durazzo, programs director for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
"But with new HIV infections holding steady at 40,000 a year nationwide, we as a country must redouble our efforts in prevention," Durazzo added. "Just a few years ago, those diagnosed with AIDS received a sentence to near certain death. Today, despair has been transformed into hope," Daniel Zingale executive director of AIDS Action, said in a statement.
But he, too, said prevention was vital and complained that no new initiatives have come from Congress or the Clinton administration.
"In particular, we must provide young people and women with the unvarnished facts about how HIV is spread as well as the sober truth about the new AIDS treatments. AIDS drugs cost $40 a day -- condoms cost 40 cents," Zingale said, adding that many Americans cannot afford the complex and expensive cocktail therapies.
Sandra Thurman, head of the Office of National AIDS policy, said people may get the wrong message that "there's nothing to worry about".
"The sad truth is that these new treatments have no effect on new infections," she said in a statement. "Also, these new treatments are very difficult to take and don't work for everybody. We are a long way off from having either a cure or a vaccine so we need to invest more of our energies in prevention and education."
There was other good news in the report. The infant mortality rate fell to 7.1 deaths per 1,000 live births from 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1996. Congenital abnormalities are the leading cause of infant death, followed by low birth weight and prematurity. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS, or crib death) was responsible for 10 percent of baby deaths.
The homicide rate fell 12 percent, and life expectancy reached a new high.
Children born in 1997 can expect to live 76.5 years, compared with 76.1 for children born in 1996.
Overall, just over 2.3 million people died in the United States last year -- just 48 more deaths than in 1996 despite a much larger increase in the population overall.
"We are seeing more deaths every year because there's a larger, older population," said Jeff Lancashire, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "But we are also seeing death rates go down."
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