NEW DELHI, Nov 21: Young African Americans led the number of new HIV/Aids cases in the United States while the number of women infected via sex in Western Europe showed a sharp spike, a UN report released on Monday said. New cases rose to 43,000 in the United States to top one million as prevention efforts lagged despite extensive programmes to treat HIV, the virus that leads to fatal AIDS, according to the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005.

“African Americans accounted for 48 per cent of new HIV cases in the (United States) in 2003. African American women are more than a dozen times as likely to be infected with HIV than their white counterparts.

“Aids has become one of the top three causes of death for African-American men aged 25-54 and for African American women aged 25-34,” said the report released in New Delhi ahead of World Aids Day on Dec 1.

Across the Atlantic, Western Europe accounted for more than half a million infections in 2005, the report said.

“The number continues to grow amid signs in several countries of a resurgence of risky sexual behaviour. The biggest change in Western Europe has been the emergence of heterosexual contact as the dominant cause of new HIV infections in several countries.—AFP