HIV/AIDS in The United States - Current Status

Current Status

The CDC estimates the cumulative number of deaths of persons with AIDS in the U.S. through 2007 to be 583,298, including 4,891 children under the age of 13. Cumulative estimated AIDS cases are 1,051,875. Persons living with HIV in reporting cities with confidential name based reporting (a fraction of the USA only) was 1,106,400 in 2006. UNAIDS estimates that there are a total of about 1,200,000 people in the U.S. living with HIV as of 2009, and that 310,000 of these are women (female 15+ years of age).

In California alone, 184,429 cumulative people (including children) have reported to have contracted HIV by December 2008. Of those, 85,958 have died, with 31,076 in Los Angeles County, 18,838 in San Francisco, and 7,135 in San Diego County.

In 2007, 119,929 People were living with HIV in New York State, with 92,669 in New York City alone.

From its male, same-sex beginnings, AIDS continues to be a problem with illegal sex workers and intravenous drug users. Today, the main route of transmission for women is through heterosexual sex, and the main risk factor for them is non-protection and the undisclosed risky behavior of their sexual partners. Experts attribute this to "AIDS fatigue" among younger people who have no memory of the worst phase of the epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as "condom fatigue" among those who have grown tired of and disillusioned with the unrelenting safer sex message. This trend is of major concern to public health workers.

AIDS is one of the top three causes of death for African American men aged 25–54 and for African American women aged 35–44 years in the United States of America. In the United States, African Americans make up about 47% of the total HIV-positive population and more than half of new HIV cases, despite making up only 12% of the population. African American women are 19 times more likely to have HIV than white women.

In a 2008 study, the Center for Disease Control found that, of the study participants who were men who had sex with men ("MSM"), almost one in five (19%) had HIV and "among those who were infected, nearly half (44 percent) were unaware of their HIV status." The research found that those who are white MSM "represent a greater number of new HIV infections than any other population, followed closely by black MSM — who are one of the most disproportionately affected subgroups in the U.S." and that most new infections among white MSM occurred among those aged 30–39 followed closely by those aged 40–49, while most new infections among black MSM have occurred among young black MSM (aged 13–29).