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Between the start of the epidemic in 1981 and December 2007,
more than 1,000,000 AIDS cases have been reported in the United States.
During that time, more than 583,000 Americans have died of AIDS.
About 1 million people in the United States are now living
with HIV infection, and more than 450,000 are living with AIDS. Each
year, more than 50,000 people become newly infected with HIV in the
United States.
About 73% of people diagnosed with AIDS in 2007 were adult or
adolescent men, and 27% were adult or adolescent women. About 50% were
black, 30% white, 20% Hispanic, and less than 1% belonged to other
races or ethnic groups.
About 17% of the US men and women recently found to have AIDS
were infected through contaminated injection drug equipment and 31%
through heterosexual sex. Nearly 75% of the women were infected by
having sex with men. About 47% of the men became infected through sex
with other men, and another 5% had used injection drugs as well as
having sex with men.
Worldwide, the most recent data available shows about 33
million people are living with HIV/AIDS. More than 60% of these people
live in sub-Saharan Africa. About half are women. In 2008, nearly 3
million people became infected with HIV. In that year, illnesses linked
to HIV/AIDS caused the deaths of about 2 million people worldwide.
Although the rate of infection from shared injection equipment
is going down in the United States, infection from sex (both
heterosexual sex and men who have sex with men) is increasing. In other
parts of the world, HIV is mostly passed on by heterosexual sex.
Overall, HIV infection has been reported in 7 groups:
- men who have unprotected sex with HIV-infected men
- women who have unprotected sex with HIV-infected men
- men who have unprotected sex with HIV-infected women
- injection drug users who share needles or syringes with
HIV-infected people
- children born to or breast-fed by HIV-infected mothers
- people who received blood or blood products from
HIV-infected donors (mostly before 1985)
- health care workers exposed at work to blood from
HIV-infected patients, usually from needlestick injuries
Careful screening of blood donors and the testing of donated
blood in the United States has resulted in a much safer blood supply
since 1985.
Last Medical Review: 09/10/2009
Last Revised: 09/10/2009
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