AIDS epidemic on the rise again in U.S

For the first time in 10 years, new HIV infections among gay men have been increasing in large cities across the country mainly due to our country's complacent view of the virus, according to recent reports.

"There needs to be a lot more attention paid to the HIV epidemic in the United States," said Dr. Jim Curran, dean of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, and a former AIDS director with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "People need to realize there's still no cure and no vaccine. Our greatest enemy in HIV prevention is ... complacency about our epidemic here."

Last year, 42,136 new AIDS cases were diagnosed in the United States, up 2.2 percent from the previous year. The number of gay and bisexual men infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was up for the third year in a row after a decade of declining numbers. While death rates among White people have been decreasing, more African-Americans died of AIDS in 2002 than 2001, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Health officials say prevention efforts have stalled, and they are changing their strategy from one of preventing new cases to counseling those who already have HIV in an attempt to get them to stop spreading it.

Since 1990, the U.S. HIV infection rate has been constant at 40,000 cases a year. The country is in danger of failing to meet its goal of cutting that number in half by 2005. Not meeting the goal will result in 130,000 more people infected with HIV by 2010 and a health care cost of $18 billion, researchers estimate.