Troubling Trend in HIV/AIDS Diagnoses
HIV Diagnosis Statistics Up Sharply In Young Men Who Have Sex With Men, Says CDC
June 26, 2008 -- HIV diagnoses in the U.S. are on the rise among men who have sex with men, especially among males aged 13-24.
That news comes from the CDC, which tracked HIV/AIDS diagnoses reported by 33 states from 2001 to 2006.
During that time, those states had 214,379 HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Men who have sex with men account for almost half -- 46% -- of those diagnoses.
Every year from 2001 to 2006, HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men rose by 1.5% overall. But that figure doesn't tell the whole story.
The youngest men, those aged 13-24, had the steepest estimated annual increase -- 12% in HIV/AIDS diagnoses. And the increase was higher -- 15% per year -- for African-American men aged 13-24 who have sex with men, compared to 9% among white and 8% among Hispanic men of the same age who have sex with men.
Men who have sex with men were the only high-risk group to show an increase in HIV diagnoses during 2001-2006. HIV diagnoses dropped during that time among heterosexuals who have high-risk sex, injection drug users, and men who are injection drug users who also have sex with men.
The findings appear in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
'Troubling' Trend
The CDC's new report is about HIV/AIDS diagnoses, not infection rates. Many people with HIV don't know they're infected.
But the new HIV/AIDS diagnosis statistics may be a red flag that HIV infection is rising among men aged 13-24 who have sex with men.
"Because these men probably have not been sexually active for a very long period of time, there's reason to believe that these diagnoses probably represent fairly recent infections and so it's an indication that infections may be increasing in this population," Richard Wolitski, PhD, acting director of the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, tells WebMD.
Increased HIV testing probably doesn't explain the trend, according to the CDC.
'Sero-Sorting' Risk
The increase in HIV diagnoses among young men who have sex with men may partly be due to "sero-sorting," in which men who have sex with men choose monogamous relationships with partners whom they believe have the same HIV status as them. But they may be mistaken about their HIV status.