AEGiS-WSJ: U.N. Sees Peak in Infections With HIV

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

U.N. Sees Peak in Infections With HIV

Wall Street Journal - July 30, 2008
Marilyn Chase, marilyn.chase@wsj.com

The AIDS pandemic has peaked or stabilized in some of the worst-hit countries, but is rising in others and remains volatile, a United Nations agency said.

The report issued Tuesday, the most comprehensive to date by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, included data from 147 countries.

It estimated that 2.7 million people became infected with HIV in 2007, down slightly from an estimated 3 million newly infected people in 2005.

The report lacked data from the U.S. Although UNAIDS called the omission "a disappointment," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is set to release updated figures on HIV infections on Sunday.

That long-awaited report is expected to reflect an increase from prior estimates that 40,000 Americans a year are infected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The agency attributes the revision to its improved counting methods.

The disease, which currently afflicts 33 million people world-wide, has claimed 25 million lives since being identified in 1981. Gains in prevention and treatment "have not been enough to push back the epidemic," said Paul DeLay, UNAIDS director of evidence, monitoring and policy.

While three million people world-wide receive treatment with antiviral drugs, tripling that number would require a sustainable commitment of $11 billion a year, said Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of the U.N. Population Fund.

Several agencies that monitor the virus issued reports Tuesday ahead of the international AIDS conference that kicks off in Mexico City on Sunday.

The Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Institute called for greater attention to the uncontrolled epidemic among African-Americans, whose infection rates rival those of some developing countries.

"More black Americans are infected with HIV than the total populations of people living with HIV in seven of the 15 countries served by PEPFAR," the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, said institute CEO Phill Wilson.

African-Americans make up one in eight Americans but 50% of those with HIV/AIDS, the institute said. Black women in the U.S. are 23 times more likely to be infected than white women. Among gay men, blacks have twice the infection rate of whites. AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women aged 25 to 34 years old, and the second-leading cause of death among black men aged 35 to 44. Drug use, incarceration, care gaps and gender inequity are faulted by the institute report for the imbalance.

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