August 03, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 30, 1429

WASHINGTON, Aug 2: At least 56,000 people become infected with the Aids virus every year in the United States — 40 per cent more than previous estimates, according to a report from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC stressed that actual infection rates have not risen but said better methods of measuring new diagnosed infections and then extrapolating this to the general population led to the fresh estimates.

“CDC's first estimates from this system reveal that the HIV epidemic is — and has been — worse than previously known.

Results indicate that approximately 56,300 new HIV infections occurred in the United States in 2006,” the CDC said in a statement.

“This figure is roughly 40 per cent higher than CDC's former estimate of 40,000 infections per year, which was based on limited data and less precise methods.”

Globally, 33 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids and 2 million die of it each year.

The CDC estimates roughly 1 million Americans are infected with the virus. Dr Kevin Fenton, who heads CDC's Aids branch, said 15,000 to 18,000 Americans die every year of Aids.

“The data really confirm that there is a severe impact of this epidemic among gay and bisexual men in the United States ... as well as black men and women,” Fenton said in a telephone interview.

More than 28,000 of the new infections are among men who have sex with men, the new estimates show. Close to 17,000 are among heterosexuals — and 15,000 of these are women.

“These data are confirming what we had known before,” Fenton said. “It also mirrors what we see about sexually transmitted diseases and changes in risk behaviour among men who have sex with men.”

—Reuters