Posted on 02/19/2004 9:28:06 PM PST by Flavius
U.S. Worried by HIV Trends in Heterosexuals Thu February 19, 2004 07:45 PM ET
By Paul Simao ATLANTA (Reuters) - The number of Americans who contract the AIDS virus through heterosexual sex remains stubbornly high and shows no sign of dropping in much of the nation, according to a federal study released on Thursday.
It said heterosexuals accounted for about a third of HIV diagnoses and three-quarters of those were black.
A total of 9,156 teenagers and adults were diagnosed in 2002 with HIV that resulted from heterosexual contact, according to an analysis of 1999-2002 health data from 29 states by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That compared with 8,925 such cases in 1999, said the CDC, which described the rise as statistically insignificant. Heterosexuals made up 35 percent of the 101,877 HIV diagnoses included in the study, in line with previous estimates.
The CDC findings, however, are a further indication that the federal government's war on AIDS may have stalled and that the disease could be poised for a resurgence after declining sharply for much of the 1990s.
Since first being diagnosed in 1981, AIDS has killed about half a million Americans, most of them believed to be homosexuals and intravenous drug users. In recent years it has made headway in people outside these high-risk groups.
About 40,000 Americans contract HIV each year.
The CDC study, which only included states that met its standards for HIV/AIDS name-based reporting, found that blacks made up 74 percent of the 36,084 heterosexually-acquired HIV cases diagnosed between 1999 and 2002.
Sixty-four percent of these new HIV infections were in women. The gender disparity was highest among teenage girls, who accounted for 89 percent of new heterosexually-acquired HIV diagnoses in the 13-19 age group, according to the CDC.
Limited access to HIV prevention services and medical care as well as a lack of knowledge about the risks of contracting the virus were cited as factors likely contributing to the racial and gender disparities.
"Prevention and education programs targeting heterosexually active teens, especially females and persons in certain racial (and) ethnic populations, should be developed," the CDC concluded.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
There's your jumpin' jive-ass MTV culture for you. And here's a big, fat 'BURN IN HELL' from Viking, to all the parents out the who don't have the cojones to lay down the law to their Lord Of The Flies offspring. At the businass end of a hickory switch, if necessary - screw the courts and the ACLU.
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