By Susan Oakie. testing. infection rate. - TheBody.com's Bulletin Boards

from exhorters of
getting tested together first
http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com

Here's 2 items of interest about
1. testing and
2. the infection rate
____________________________________________

By Susan Oakie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 13, 2001; 10:35 AM

Era of Decline of U.S. AIDS Cases May Be Over
Further Progress Could Depend on Finding New Treatments
and Expanding Testing and Access to Care,
Health Officials Say
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4307-2001Aug13.html

[ ...more ]

...Further progress is likely to depend on expanding
HIV testing and access to care, as well as finding
treatments for people in whom the virus becomes
resistant to drugs, Gayle said...

...

...Thanks to efforts to expand HIV testing and
treatment for pregnant women, only 156 cases of.
transmission of HIV by infected mothers to newborn
infants were reported nationally in 1999, a record
low since the start of the epidemic and an 84
percent decrease since 1992, when such cases
peaked...

...

...In addition, HIV infection rates have declined in
injecting drug users in most areas where testing
has been done, Gayle said...

...

...CDC officials also believe that the number of
Americans who become newly infected with HIV each
year has remained stable at 40,000 annually for
almost 10 years, Gayle said. But that figure is an
estimate, since new cases of HIV infection are not
reportable by federal law and there is no
blood-testing program that measures infection rates
nationally.

Biostatisticians arrive at the figure by estimating
how many Americans are at risk for infection,
conducting surveys to measure infection rates among
samples of people in various high-risk groups, and
estimating what proportion each risk group
contributes to the total pool of infected
people. The agency estimates that between 800,000
and 900,000 Americans are currently infected with
HIV, a figure that includes those who already have
AIDS, Gayle said...

...

...Health workers will now need to expand HIV testing,
improve access to treatment and focus on the care
of patients who can't tolerate the drugs, fail to
follow their medication schedule or stop responding
to the medicines, Gayle said...

...

...Encouraging more people at risk of HIV to get tested
could reduce both new infections and AIDS cases,
she added. "Around one-third of people whom we
estimate to be HIV-infected are not getting tested
and getting into care early," she said...

[ more... ]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4307-2001Aug13.html

_____Live Online_____

o Transcript:
Dr. Rob Janssen, director of AIDS programs at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

_____Special Report_____

o AIDS and HIV

_____More Graphics_____

AIDS Thumbnail o How AIDS Spread Over 15 Years
o Waking Up to the Devastation
o AIDS in Numbers
o AIDS in Numbers II
o HIV Facts

...

[ more... ]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4307-2001Aug13.html

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