AEGiS-WSJ: HIV Study Shows 4.4% Infection Rate For Young Gay Men, Especially Blacks

ATLANTA -- A new federal HIV survey is adding to fears of a rise in AIDS in young men who are gay or bisexual, particularly among blacks.

A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found an annual incidence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, of 4.4% among young gay men in six large cities. That means that for every 100 young gay men who aren't infected at the beginning of the year, four become HIV infected by the end of the year, said Linda Valleroy, the CDC epidemiologist who headed the survey. She said the incidence is reminiscent of rates for gay men in the 1980s, the early years of the epidemic.

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Incidence in the study, which covered men aged 23 to 29, ranged from 2.5% among whites, to 3.5% among Hispanics and 14.7% among blacks. The study builds on earlier data pointing to troubling increases in HIV among young gay men.

The numbers for young blacks are particularly disturbing, Dr. Valleroy said, although she cautioned that the data are preliminary, that the study included only men who gathered at gay venues and that the number of blacks surveyed was relatively small. The survey, conducted between 1998 and 2000 in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle, involved 2,942 men, of whom 497, or 17%, were black. Nevertheless, "These are explosive HIV incidence rates," she said, comparable to rates seen among sexually active adults in South Africa, one of the countries most devastated by the AIDS epidemic.

There is no historic incidence data on young gay men for comparison, so the CDC couldn't say whether HIV infection rates are increasing among that group. But combined with recent outbreaks of sexually transmitted diseases among gays, Dr. Valleroy said, the new data provide a "snapshot" that may portend a worsening epidemic among gay men, and among gay African-Americans in particular.

"By themselves, they're alarming statistics," said Helene Gayle, director of the CDC's AIDS prevention center, which released the data to mark the 20th year of the epidemic.

Possibly because new drug treatments allow people with AIDS to live longer, officials said, younger gay men haven't seen friends die from the disease and may not take prevention as seriously as older gays. The findings, they said, underscore the need to continue outreach and prevention efforts to reach each new generation of gay men as early as possible.

The CDC aims to cut in half the number of new HIV infections in the U.S., from 40,000 annually to 20,000, over the next five years. The plan includes encouraging people to get tested for HIV, and better targeting prevention programs in high-risk African-American and Hispanic communities as well as to women and injection-drug users.

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