Number of U.S. HIV Cases Rose by 50,000 Between 1998 and 2000, CDC Says

The number of Americans diagnosed with HIV increased by 50,000 betweem 1998 and 2000, according to Dr. Harold Jaffe, acting director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, Newsday reports. Jaffe announced the statistics at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, which is being held this week in Seattle. He stated that for the past three years, the proportion of HIV-positive people who die of AIDS-related causes each year has remained steady at 3%. He said that those deaths can be attributed to the fact that many HIV-positive people "are not accepting the health care system at all." Jaffe said, "We have reached a plateau in both AIDS cases and deaths in the United States. I think this is largely due to the remarkable number of people not coming in for [HIV] tests" (Garrett, Newsday, 2/25).