Number of Americans Diagnosed with HIV in Recent Times Reduces by 30 Percent: CDC

The number of Americans diagnosed with HIV decreased by 30 percent in recent times, finds a study.

Health researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta looked at a national data between 2002 and 2011 to note the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases like human immunodeficiency virus or HIV in people aged over 13. They found during these years nearly 493,372 individuals living across 50 states in the country were diagnosed with the condition.

The average number of people diagnosed with the disease was 24.1 for every 100,000 people in 2002 and 16.1 in 2011, accounting for a decline of about 33.2 percent. This trend was observed particularly among women, individuals aged between 35 and 44 and those from other ethnic backgrounds. However, the study did not record any changes among Asians and native Hawaiians. The drastic reduction in the diagnosis rate was mainly associated with decrease in usage of injection drugs and abstaining from unprotected sexual contact in heterosexual relations. The authors believe changes and developments in methods to diagnose and detect HIV may have contributed to the acute changes in prevalence of the disease.

But, the findings also revealed HIV diagnosis surged among homosexual men aged between 13 and 24, 45 to 54 and those who were 55 or older.  The risk rate increased by 132.5 percent for men who had sex with other men. 

"Among men who have sex with men, unprotected risk behaviors in the presence of high prevalence and unsuppressed viral load may continue to drive HIV transmission. Disparities in rates of HIV among young men who have sex with men present prevention challenges and warrant expanded efforts," write the authors in the study.

More information is available online in JAMA.