The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the rate of HIV diagnoses in the United States have fallen more than 30 percent over the past decade, but has surged among some gay men, according to Philly.com.
There has been a dramatic 132.5 percent increase in the rate of HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men and who are aged between 13 and 24, according to the study led by Anna Satcher Johnson of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It's been more than 30 years since the first cases were reported,” said a report co-author Amy Lansky, deputy director for surveillance, epidemiology and laboratory sciences at the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, according to the news site. “It's harder to maintain that sense of urgency.”
Gay men aged 45 and older were also increasingly diagnosed with HIV, according to report findings.
For blacks, who have for years borne the brunt of new diagnosis, the rates declined 37 percent and 41 percent for Hispanics, the report shows.
The rate of HIV diagnosis overall in the United States dropped 33 percent from 2002-2011, the report shows. Findings also show that the rate of HIV diagnoses fell among other groups, including heterosexual women and injection drug users.
Among women, diagnosis rates dropped by about half, and among men by more than one-quarter, the report says. The report estimates that HIV infections due to injection drug use fell by roughly 70 percent and from heterosexual contact by more than one-third for men and women.
The study only evaluated people diagnosed with HIV, but health officials think many more are infected with the virus but don't know it. The statistics do not show the when people were infected, making it difficult to pinpoint trends in efforts to prevent transmission of the virus, Philly.com writes.
Read more at Philly.com.